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OpenAdvisories
Medium · 5.0 CVE-2026-54055 EUVD-2026-36556

Kitty has an Arbitrary File Write via Symlink Race Condition in File Transmission Protocol

Published Jun 12, 2026 · Updated Jun 15, 2026 · Assigned by GitHub_M

Description

Kitty is a cross-platform GPU based terminal. In versions prior to 0.47.2, a local privilege escalation vulnerability exists in kitty's file transmission protocol where a child process running in the terminal can write to arbitrary files on the filesystem by exploiting a TOCTOU (Time-of-Check-Time-of-Use) race condition between symlink validation and file creation. The `os.open()` call used to create files does not use `O_NOFOLLOW`, allowing an attacker to create a symlink between the initial stat check and the actual file open, causing the write to follow the symlink to an arbitrary destination. Version 0.47.2 fixes the issue.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
kovidgoyal kitty < 0.47.2 —

Fixed in Linux distributions

Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.

ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Debian 14 kitty 0.47.3-1 —
Debian 13 kitty 0.41.1-2+deb13u2 —
Debian 12 kitty No fix yet —
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Ubuntu 25.10 kitty No fix yet —
Show 2 more (older releases, extended support, other products)
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Ubuntu Pro 26.04 LTS kitty 0.45.0-1ubuntu0.1~esm2 USN-8763-1
Ubuntu Pro 24.04 LTS kitty 0.32.2-1ubuntu0.4+esm2 USN-8763-1

Advisories 1

References