CVE-2026-40224

Medium

Published: 10 April 2026

Published

10 April 2026

Modified

27 April 2026

KEV Added

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Patch

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CVSS Score 6.7 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

EPSS Score 0.0001 1.8th percentile

Risk Priority 13 60% EPSS · 20% KEV · 20% CVSS

Summary

CVE-2026-40224 is a medium-severity Incorrect Authorization (CWE-863) vulnerability in Systemd Project Systemd. Its CVSS base score is 6.7 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 1.8th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 SI-2 (Flaw Remediation) and AC-6 (Least Privilege).

Threat & Defense at a Glance

What attackers do: exploitation maps to Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068). What defenders deploy: see the NIST 800-53 controls recommended below.

Threat & Defense Details

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5)AI

SI-2 Flaw Remediation good match

prevent

Directly mitigates the privilege escalation vulnerability by requiring timely remediation through upgrading systemd from version 259 to 260 or later.

RA-5 Vulnerability Monitoring and Scanning partial match

detect

Identifies the presence of the vulnerable systemd-machined component via vulnerability scanning, enabling proactive patching.

AC-6 Least Privilege partial match

prevent

Limits the potential impact of local privilege escalation from low-privilege users by enforcing least privilege principles on system processes and accounts.

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation Privilege Escalation

Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to elevate privileges.

attack.mitre.org →

Why these techniques?

The vulnerability is explicitly a local privilege escalation in systemd-machined due to incorrect authorization via varlink reaching the root namespace, directly mapping to exploitation for privilege escalation.

Confidence: HIGH · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v18.1

NVD Description

In systemd 259 before 260, there is local privilege escalation in systemd-machined because varlink can be used to reach the root namespace.

Deeper analysisAI

CVE-2026-40224 is a local privilege escalation vulnerability in systemd-machined, affecting systemd versions 259 before 260. The flaw occurs because varlink can be used to reach the root namespace, leading to incorrect authorization (CWE-863). Published on 2026-04-10, it carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 6.7 (AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H).

A local attacker with low privileges (PR:L) can exploit this vulnerability by leveraging varlink in systemd-machined. Exploitation requires local access (AV:L), high attack complexity (AC:H), and user interaction (UI:R), with unchanged scope (S:U). Successful exploitation enables high impacts on confidentiality, integrity, and availability, allowing the attacker to escalate privileges within the system.

The systemd security advisory at https://github.com/systemd/systemd/security/advisories/GHSA-6pwp-j5vg-5j6m provides details on the vulnerability. Systems are mitigated by upgrading to systemd version 260 or later.