---
id: CVE-2026-49237
title: >-
  An issue was discovered in Canonical Multipass for macOS before version 1.16.3
  due to an incomplete fix for CVE-2025-5199
summary: >-
  An issue was discovered in Canonical Multipass for macOS before version 1.16.3
  due to an incomplete fix for CVE-2025-5199. While the patch in version 1.16.0
  updated the ownership of the multipassd daemon binary to root:wheel, five
  co-loc…
severity: high
cvss: 7.8
cvssVector: 'CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H'
cwe:
  - CWE-276
vendor: canonical
product: multipass
affected:
  - multipass < 1.16.3
patched:
  - multipass 1.16.3
published: '2026-05-28'
updated: '2026-10-14'
sourceUpdated: '2026-10-14T20:10:00.190'
source: NVD
sourceUrl: 'https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-49237'
references:
  - url: >-
      https://github.com/canonical/multipass/security/advisories/GHSA-r2xg-x32f-23c5
    label: security@ubuntu.com
tags:
  - nvd
epss: 0.0016
epssPercentile: 0.04633
ingestedAt: '2026-10-14T20:53:12.336Z'
---

## Overview

An issue was discovered in Canonical Multipass for macOS before version 1.16.3 due to an incomplete fix for CVE-2025-5199. While the patch in version 1.16.0 updated the ownership of the multipassd daemon binary to root:wheel, five co-located binaries (multipass, qemu-img, qemu-system-aarch64, qemu-system-x86_64, and sshfs_server) in /Library/Application Support/com.canonical.multipass/bin/ retain ownership by the installing user and remain writable. Because the root LaunchDaemon (com.canonical.multipassd.plist) configures a PATH environment variable that prioritizes this user-writable directory and invokes these auxiliary binaries by their bare names, a local attacker can replace an auxiliary binary (such as qemu-img) with a malicious wrapper. When the root daemon subsequently triggers the binary during routine execution (e.g., via multipass launch), the malicious code executes with root privileges, leading to local privilege escalation.

## Affected

- `multipass < 1.16.3`

## Remediation

Upgrade past the affected range:

- `multipass 1.16.3`