Severity by source
AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:N
Attacker needs local code execution inside a confined snap (AV:L/PR:L), the bypass is straightforward (AC:L), and escaping confinement crosses a trust boundary (S:C) with high confidentiality/integrity impact and no availability effect.
Primary rating from Vendor (canonical).
CVSS VectorVendor: canonical
Lifecycle Timeline
2DescriptionCVE.org
A sandbox confinement bypass vulnerability exists in Canonical snapd within its internal execution environment compiler (snap-confine). The default seccomp security templates generated by the engine to restrict system calls do not filter or reject process operations capable of creating or manipulating file execution flags with set-user-ID attributes. Consequently, an application running within a strictly confined snap environment can successfully compile or drop binaries and apply setuid properties to them. If a compromised or malicious process inside the snap sandbox executes these generated setuid binaries, it can potentially circumvent architectural sandboxing assumptions, drop intended restriction policies, or execute privileged actions inside the container namespace that should otherwise be strictly blocked. The vulnerability has been resolved by hardening the seccomp template engine to block the execution and creation of setuid executables by sandboxed snap processes.
AnalysisAI
Sandbox confinement bypass in Canonical snapd (snap-confine) affects all supported Ubuntu LTS releases (16.04 through 26.04) because the default seccomp templates fail to block system calls that create or set set-user-ID flags on files. A process already running inside a strictly confined snap can compile or drop a binary, mark it setuid, and then execute it to escape confinement assumptions and perform privileged actions within the container namespace. There is no public exploit identified at time of analysis and the issue is not listed in CISA KEV, but the CVSS 8.4 (scope-changed) rating reflects a genuine confinement-escape primitive.
Technical ContextAI
snapd confines applications using a layered sandbox in which snap-confine sets up a mount namespace, AppArmor profiles, and a seccomp-bpf system-call filter generated from default templates. The vulnerability is a CWE-250 (Execution with Unnecessary Privileges) weakness: the generated seccomp template does not deny the syscalls used to set the S_ISUID mode bit (e.g. chmod/fchmod/fchmodat with setuid flags) on files a confined snap can write. Because setuid binaries carry their owner's privileges on execution, allowing a confined process to author and mark such a binary undermines the seccomp/namespace model that is supposed to strip elevated behavior. The CPE data scopes impact to the Canonical Ubuntu LTS platform packages (Ubuntu 16.04, 18.04, 20.04, 22.04, 24.04, and 26.04 LTS), all of which ship snapd by default.
RemediationAI
Patch available per vendor advisory: Canonical has resolved the issue by hardening the seccomp template engine to block creation and execution of setuid executables by sandboxed snap processes - apply the updated snapd package for your release via the standard channel (e.g. 'sudo snap refresh snapd' and 'sudo apt update && sudo apt install --only-upgrade snapd'), then confirm the fixed version against https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2026-15226 as exact fixed version numbers were not included in the input. Because exploitation requires a malicious process already inside a confined snap, interim compensating controls include auditing and restricting which untrusted snaps are installed, removing or tightening snaps from unverified publishers, and monitoring for confined processes creating setuid binaries; note these controls reduce but do not eliminate the flaw and may disrupt legitimate snaps that manage their own binaries. No independently confirmed fixed version number is available from the provided data, so verify before asserting compliance.
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Same weakness CWE-250 – Execution with Unnecessary Privileges
View allSame technique Privilege Escalation
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External POC / Exploit Code
Leaving vuln.today
EUVD-2026-46261
GHSA-9pj8-7m3m-mh5h