high · 7.8

Sudo: sudo: tz environment variable allows bypass of notbefore/notafter time-based authorization

CVE-2026-96512 · published 23 Sept 2026

How serious is it

  • Severity: high, CVSS score 7.8 out of 10.
  • No exploit prediction (EPSS) score yet.
  • Not on the CISA list of exploited vulnerabilities.
  • No public exploit in Exploit-DB.

Is your app affected by CVE-2026-96512?

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Who is affected

  • Red Hat Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10
  • Red Hat Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10.0 Extended Update Support
  • Red Hat Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
  • Red Hat Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.8 Telecommunications Update Service
  • Red Hat Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.8 Update Services for SAP Solutions
  • Red Hat Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9
  • Red Hat Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9
  • Red Hat Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.4 Update Services for SAP Solutions
  • Red Hat Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.6 Extended Update Support
  • Red Hat Red Hat Hardened Images

How to check

  1. Find out whether you run the affected product and which version, then compare it with the versions above.

How to fix

Copies a prompt for Claude Code, Cursor or Codex that asks it to check whether you run this product.
  1. Apply the vendor's update or mitigation from the references below. If there is none yet, limit exposure of the affected service until there is.
  2. If a vulnerable version was live, check your logs and rotate the secrets that server could read.

The advisory

A flaw was found in sudo. When sudoers rules use NOTBEFORE or NOTAFTER time-based access restrictions with timestamps that omit the trailing 'Z' timezone indicator, the time evaluation relies on the TZ environment variable inherited from the calling user. Because sudo is a setuid-root program, an unprivileged local user can set TZ to an extreme timezone offset to shift the authorization window by up to approximately 25 hours, causing expired rules to be treated as valid. This allows the user to execute commands outside the intended time window. Authentication is not bypassed; only the time-based authorization check is affected.

Check your whole app

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References

Merged from CVE List. Last updated 24 Oct 2026. All vulnerabilities · RSS · JSON

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