Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) Affecting policycoreutils-restorecond package, versions <0:2.5-22.amzn2.0.1


Severity

Recommended
0.0
medium
0
10

Based on Amazon Linux security rating.

Threat Intelligence

EPSS
0.11% (2nd percentile)

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  • Snyk IDSNYK-AMZN2-POLICYCOREUTILSRESTORECOND-20244866
  • published29 Sept 2026
  • disclosed7 Aug 2026

Introduced: 7 Aug 2026

CVE-2026-19079  (opens in a new tab)
CWE-367  (opens in a new tab)

How to fix?

Upgrade Amazon-Linux:2 policycoreutils-restorecond to version 0:2.5-22.amzn2.0.1 or higher.
This issue was patched in ALAS2-2026-3949.

NVD Description

Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream policycoreutils-restorecond package and not the policycoreutils-restorecond package as distributed by Amazon-Linux. See How to fix? for Amazon-Linux:2 relevant fixed versions and status.

A TOCTOU (Time-of-Check-Time-of-Use) race condition vulnerability was found in the fixfiles script in policycoreutils. When running fixfiles relabel or fixfiles restore, the script used find and chcon commands to locate and relabel unlabeled files under /tmp and other directories. A local attacker could exploit a race window between the file discovery and the label change operation by swapping directory components with symlinks, causing chcon to follow the symlink and modify SELinux labels on arbitrary system files. This could undermine SELinux mandatory access control protections on critical files such as /etc/shadow.

CVSS Base Scores

version 3.1