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HIGH

CVE-2026-41489

CVE-2026-41489 — Pi-hole: Local privilege escalation via config-controlled path in root-executed service hooks

Pi-hole is a DNS sinkhole that protects devices from unwanted content without installing any client-side software. From 6.0 to before Core 6.4.2 and FTL 6.6.1, two shell scripts executed as root by systemd (pihole-FTL-prestart.sh and pihole-FTL-poststop.sh) read the files.pid path from this config without validation and use it in privileged file operations (install and rm -f). By writing an arbitrary path into files.pid, an attacker with pihole privilege can cause root to delete and then recreate any file on the system outside the ProtectSystem=full-restricted directories, gaining write access to it. On a default Pi-hole installation this yields local privilege escalation to root via SSH authorized keys manipulation. If /root/.ssh/authorized_keys does not exist (default on fresh installs), only ExecStartPre is required. If the file exists, ExecStopPost deletes it first, and the same…

Published Updated Sources: cvelistV5, GitHub_M

Triage

Is it exploited, how likely is exploitation, what does it touch, and how severe do the scoring sources call it.

Exploitation

Unreported

no source claims exploitation

EPSS

0%

chance of exploitation in 30 days

Affects

pi hole

pi_hole

CVSS base

8.8

HIGH

CISA SSVC assessment

Three decision points CISA publishes for the CVEs it assesses · SSVC 2.0.3. A stakeholder decision, not a severity score.

CISA

Exploitation

PoC

none · proof-of-concept · active

Automatable

No

can an attacker script all four kill-chain steps

Technical impact

Total

partial · total control of the vulnerable component

Affected scope

The catalog records vendors and products as separate lists, not pairs, so which product belongs to which vendor is not something this page can say.

Vendors (1)

pi hole

Products (1)

pi hole

Every base score collected

Sources score independently and disagree; each row says who scored it and under which version.

ScoreVersionSeverityExpl.ImpactSource
8.8CVSS 3.1HIGH——cvelistV5

Weakness & attack patterns

  • CWE-732
  • CWE-269
  • CWE-15

Attack patterns reported against this CVE. The ATT&CK techniques below are inferred from its weakness class.

  • T1574.010Hijack Execution Flow: ServicesFile Permissions Weakness
  • T1548Abuse Elevation Control Mechanism
  • T1083File and Directory Discovery

Detection

Read off the CVSS vector and the weakness class. Starting points, not rules we have tested.

  • Search application, proxy, and WAF logs for requests touching /root/.ssh/authorized_keys.

References

1 on the record

Elsewhere on this site

  • pi holeevery CVE for this vendor
  • CWE-732other pages naming this weakness

Not in any source we poll

Listed rather than left blank: an empty field and an unmeasured one look identical on screen, and only one is a reason to look elsewhere.

  • No confirmed IOCs, IP addresses, domains, file hashes, or malware artifacts supplied.
  • No organization-specific asset inventory, compensating-control status, or patch deployment evidence supplied.
  • No exploit packet captures, log samples, or incident case IDs supplied.