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CVE-2026-23988
January 22, 2026
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 Packages
https://github.com/pbatard/rufus.git (GITHUB):
Affected version(s) >=v1.0.3 <v4.12_BETA
Fix Suggestion:
Update to version v4.12_BETA
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CVSS v4
Base Score:
7
Attack Vector
LOCAL
Attack Complexity
LOW
Attack Requirements
NONE
Privileges Required
LOW
User Interaction
PASSIVE
Vulnerable System Confidentiality
HIGH
Vulnerable System Integrity
HIGH
Vulnerable System Availability
HIGH
Subsequent System Confidentiality
NONE
Subsequent System Integrity
NONE
Subsequent System Availability
NONE
CVSS v3
Base Score:
7.3
Attack Vector
LOCAL
Attack Complexity
LOW
Privileges Required
LOW
User Interaction
REQUIRED
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
HIGH
Integrity
HIGH
Availability
HIGH
Weakness Type (CWE)
Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) Race Condition
EPSS
Base Score:
0.01