Nix before 2.35.3 and Lix before 2.95.4 allow privilege escalation via a repair operation because it could destroy and then replace a store path before content verification.
Hello,
The Nix and Lix projects are jointly disclosing a set of vulnerabilities that can be combined to escalate privileges to root on systems running the Nix or Lix daemon. Fixed releases of both projects are available today. This is a coordinated disclosure between the Nix and Lix projects. CVE IDs have not yet been requested.
Issues affecting both Nix and Lix =========================
CVE-2026-XXXXX [list overflow] Unsigned integer overflow when allocating Nix lists. It leads to a heap out-of-bounds write while evaluating untrusted Nix expressions.
CVE-2026-XXXXX [repair] Unprivileged repair operations could delete and replace a legitimate store path before its contents were verified. This leads to local privilege escalation.
CVE-2026-XXXXX [seatbelt] macOS Seatbelt sandbox escape. When the generated sandbox profile crossed an internal size threshold at a missing optional path, an unqualified (allow ...) form could be emitted. The build then ran unconfined.
Issues affecting Nix only (Lix is not affected) ==================================
CVE-2026-XXXXX [installer], GHSA-hf6w-2rg9-v84g Bug in the multi-user installer. The script left the contents of the store (not the store directory itself) owned by the invoking user rather than root.
CVE-2026-XXXXX [daemon authz], GHSA-92x5-h528-wrmw Improper authorisation of Nix daemon clients. Unsandboxed configurations on macOS and FreeBSD did not reject connections from build users. This makes the repair issue above more severe.
Am I affected? ===========
All systems that build untrusted derivations are affected.
- List overflow: affects any evaluation of untrusted Nix code, including nix eval, builds, and anything else that evaluates expressions from untrusted sources. In Nix, the impact depends on the optimisations performed by the compiler used to build Nix.
- Repair privilege escalation: affects multi-user daemon installations where unprivileged users can connect to the daemon, on both Linux and macOS.
- Seatbelt escape: macOS only, and only when sandbox = true or sandbox = relaxed is configured. sandbox defaults to false on macOS. The escape can be triggered deliberately, and in some configurations by accident.
Affected and fixed versions =====================
Nix Affected: <= 2.35.2, <= 2.34.8, <= 2.31.5, <= 2.30.5, <= 2.28.7 Fixed: 2.35.3, 2.34.9, 2.31.6, 2.30.6, 2.28.8 Older versions are impacted to varying degrees and should be assumed vulnerable. 2.29.x, 2.32.x and 2.33.x lineages are no longer maintained and will not receive these fixes.
Lix Affected: <= 2.95.3, <= 2.94.2 Fixed: 2.95.4, 2.94.3 The 2.93 branch and older are also affected. They are no longer maintained and will not receive fixes.
References =========
[1] Lix blogpost announcement: https://lix.systems/blog/2026-10-13-lix-cves/ [2] Shared announcement on NixOS Discourse forum: https://discourse.nixos.org/t/security-advisory-for-nix-and-lix-october-2026/80547 [3] Nix list overflow GHSA: https://github.com/NixOS/nix/security/advisories/GHSA-25vp-6h23-hj3g [4] Nix repair GHSA: https://github.com/NixOS/nix/security/advisories/GHSA-jwvx-xq5j-gc56 [5] Nix seatbelt GHSA: https://github.com/NixOS/nix/security/advisories/GHSA-m4vq-qf6v-82pj [6] Nix installer GHSA: https://github.com/NixOS/nix/security/advisories/GHSA-hf6w-2rg9-v84g [7] Nix daemon auth GHSA: https://github.com/NixOS/nix/security/advisories/GHSA-92x5-h528-wrmw
Hello everyone,
The Lix issue has been assigned CVE-2026-44028 (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N). The Lix team has published a detailed blog post about it here for those of you wanting extra details: https://lix.systems/blog/2026-05-05-lix-unsigned-integer-overflow/
We are currently having some troubles getting this CVE split from the Nix issue GHSA-vh5x-56v6-4368 and updated accordingly. While both vulnerabilities could lead to similar compromises and were discovered around the same time, they do not share the same root cause.
The other Nix vulnerability, GHSA-gr92-w2r5-qw5p, has been assigned CVE-2026-44029.
Le lun. 4 mai 2026 à 23:06, Thomas GERBET <thomas () gerbet me> a écrit : Summary
Nix and Lix daemon implementations are affected by buffer overflows vulnerabilities that allow a local attacker to gain arbitrary code execution as the daemon user (root in multi-user installations).
The vulnerabilities are identified as: - Nix: GHSA-vh5x-56v6-4368, CVE ID pending attribution. - Lix: CVE ID pending attribution.
This is a coordinated disclosure between the Nix and Lix projects.
Guix is NOT affected by this vulnerability.
Am I affected?
To exploit this issue, a local attacker needs access to talk to the Nix daemon. All systems that allow connections to their daemons are affected. Only users that are allowed to connect to the daemon (via allowed-users and trusted-users) can reliably trigger the issue. Substituters can in theory trigger the issue but cannot make enough attempts to mount attacks in practice.
Additionally, this vulnerability requires ASLR weakening techniques to lead to a compromise.
Fixes
The vulnerabilities are fixed in the following versions:
- Nix: - Affected versions: ≥ 2.24.4 - Fixed versions: 2.34.7, 2.33.6, 2.32.8, 2.31.5, 2.30.5, 2.29.4, 2.28.7
Nix security release also includes patches that address an unrelated path traversal vulnerability GHSA-gr92-w2r5-qw5p (CVE ID pending attribution).
- Lix: - Affected versions: ≥ 2.93.0 - Fixed versions: 2.93.4, 2.94.2, 2.95.2
Acknowledgement
- We would like to thank @edef with the help of Sander (@sandydoo) for reporting the issues and working with the development teams to suggest and confirm the fixes. - Thanks to eldritch horrors (@pennae) and Raito Bezarius (@RaitoBezarius) on the Lix side for the mitigation. - Thanks to @xokdvium on the Nix side for the mitigation. - Thanks to @hexa and @tgerbet on the NixOS security team for coordinating this.
References
https://discourse.nixos.org/t/security-advisory-local-privilege-escalation-in-lix-and-nix/77407 Nix issues: - https://github.com/NixOS/nix/security/advisories/GHSA-vh5x-56v6-4368 - https://github.com/NixOS/nix/security/advisories/GHSA-gr92-w2r5-qw5p Lix in-depth review blog post: not yet published
Nix is a package manager for Linux and other Unix systems. A bug in the fix for CVE-2024-27297 allowed for arbitrary overwrites of files writable by the Nix process orchestrating the builds (typically the Nix daemon running as root in multi-user installations) by following symlinks during fixed-output derivation output registration. This affects sandboxed Linux builds - sandboxed macOS builds are unaffected. The location of the temporary output used for the output copy was located inside the build chroot. A symlink, pointing to an arbitrary location in the filesystem, could be created by the derivation builder at that path. During output registration, the Nix process (running in the host mount namespace) would follow that symlink and overwrite the destination with the derivation's output contents. In multi-user installations, this allows all users able to submit builds to the Nix daemon (allowed-users - defaulting to all users) to gain root privileges by modifying sensitive files. This vulnerability is fixed in 2.34.5, 2.33.4, 2.32.7, 2.31.4, 2.30.4, 2.29.3, and 2.28.6.
End of life: 7/13/2026, Latest version: 2.34.9
End of life: 2/27/2026, Latest version: 2.33.6
End of life: 12/10/2025, Latest version: 2.32.8
End of life: 10/7/2025, Latest version: 2.31.6
End of life: 8/25/2025, Latest version: 2.30.6
End of life: 7/7/2025, Latest version: 2.29.4
End of life: 5/14/2025, Latest version: 2.28.8
Last updated 16 September 2026