CVE-2026-120749
Description
A flaw was found in D-Bus. With a privileged Monitoring client attached (for example dbus-monitor or busctl monitor), an unprivileged local user can cause dbus-daemon to abort if a driver-originated broadcast such as NameOwnerChanged or ActivatableServicesChanged cannot be delivered to a recipient (for example due to a deny rule or an exceeded outgoing message queue). Driver broadcasts still use serial 0; when delivery fails, composing the monitor error reply asserts reply_serial != 0 and aborts the daemon. This is an incomplete fix for CVE-2023-34969, which only assigned serials for driver messages sent to a single recipient. On the well-known system bus this is a denial of service.
Statement
This is the residual broadcast half of CVE-2023-34969. The earlier fix (b159849e) only covered bus_transaction_send_from_driver() unicast paths; driver broadcasts never received a non-zero serial, so monitor error-reply capture can still abort dbus-daemon. Upstream vulnerable versions are still to be determined; no fixed release is published yet (tracked as dbus#576, fix in !565 / !592).
Mitigation
This can only be done if a monitoring process such as dbus-monitor or busctl monitor is active on the same dbus-daemon instance, which is a privileged operation that can only be done by root or the Unix uid of the message bus. If no monitoring process is active, then the vulnerable code is not reached.
Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details
Info alert:Important note
CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).
The following CVSS metrics and score provided are preliminary and subject to review.
CVSS v3 Score Breakdown
| Red Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 6.2 | N/A | 6.2 |
| Attack Vector | Local | N/A | Local |
| Attack Complexity | Low | N/A | Low |
| Privileges Required | None | N/A | None |
| User Interaction | None | N/A | None |
| Scope | Unchanged | N/A | Unchanged |
| Confidentiality | None | N/A | None |
| Integrity Impact | None | N/A | None |
| Availability Impact | High | N/A | High |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
cve.org: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Availability
Technical Impact: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart
While assertion is good for catching logic errors and reducing the chances of reaching more serious vulnerability conditions, an attacker can still cause a denial of service if they can trigger an assert statement, and if the scope of the assert() extends beyond the attacker's own session. For example, if a server handles multiple simultaneous connections, if an assert() occurs in one single connection that causes all other connections to be dropped, this could be a significant denial of service.
Acknowledgements
Upstream acknowledges parkma99 as the original reporter.
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