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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.

PUBLISHED Reserved 2026-01-19 | Published 2026-01-22 | Updated 2026-01-23 | Assigner GitHub_M




HIGH: 7.3CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Problem types

CWE-367: Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) Race Condition

Product status

< 4.12_BETA
affected

References

github.com/.../rufus/security/advisories/GHSA-hcx5-hrhj-xhq9

github.com/...ommit/460cc5768aa45be07941b9e4ebc9bee02d282873

github.com/pbatard/rufus/releases/tag/v4.12_BETA

cve.org (CVE-2026-23988)

nvd.nist.gov (CVE-2026-23988)

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