CVE-2026-53798
MediumCVSS 5.3Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk20th percentile - higher than 20% of all known CVEs
Summary
rsync before 3.5.0 contains a privilege confusion vulnerability in the name-converter subprocess uid/gid mapping that allows local attackers to cause transferred files to be owned by root by influencing name-converter responses to return empty values. rsync incorrectly interprets empty responses as successful resolution to uid/gid 0 (root), leading to root ownership assignments.
Risk Assessment
A local attacker can cause transferred files to be owned by root, potentially leading to privilege escalation or unauthorized access to files.
Recommendation
Upgrade rsync to version 3.5.0 or later, which contains the fix.
Original NVD description (English source)
rsync before 3.5.0 contains a privilege confusion vulnerability in the name-converter subprocess uid/gid mapping that allows local attackers to cause transferred files to be owned by root by influencing name-converter responses to return empty values. When the name-converter subprocess returns an empty response for a uid or gid lookup, rsync incorrectly interprets it as a successful resolution to uid/gid 0 (root) rather than a lookup failure, and if the name-converter also signals fake super-user status, rsync proceeds with root ownership assignments for transferred files.