Unrated severityOSV Advisory· Published Jan 22, 2026· Updated Jan 23, 2026
Rufus has Local Privilege Escalation via TOCTOU Race Condition in Fido Script Handling
CVE-2026-23988
Description
Rufus is a utility that helps format and create bootable USB flash drives. Versions 4.11 and below contain a race condition (TOCTOU) in src/net.c during the creation, validation, and execution of the Fido PowerShell script. Since Rufus runs with elevated privileges (Administrator) but writes the script to the %TEMP% directory (writeable by standard users) without locking the file, a local attacker can replace the legitimate script with a malicious one between the file write operation and the execution step. This allows arbitrary code execution with Administrator privileges. This issue has been fixed in version 4.12_BETA.
Affected products
1Patches
0No patches discovered yet.
Vulnerability mechanics
AI mechanics synthesis has not run for this CVE yet.
References
3- github.com/pbatard/rufus/commit/460cc5768aa45be07941b9e4ebc9bee02d282873mitrex_refsource_MISC
- github.com/pbatard/rufus/releases/tag/v4.12_BETAmitrex_refsource_MISC
- github.com/pbatard/rufus/security/advisories/GHSA-hcx5-hrhj-xhq9mitrex_refsource_CONFIRM
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