Kitty is a cross-platform GPU based terminal. In versions prior to 0.47.2, a local privilege escalation vulnerability exists in kitty's file transmission protocol where a child process running in the terminal can write to arbitrary files on the filesystem by exploiting a TOCTOU (Time-of-Check-Time-of-Use) race condition between symlink validation and file creation. The `os.open()` call used to create files does not use `O_NOFOLLOW`, allowing an attacker to create a symlink between the initial stat check and the actual file open, causing the write to follow the symlink to an arbitrary destination. Version 0.47.2 fixes the issue.
Conclusion & alert: CVE-2026-54055 is rated Low Risk (20.1/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.07%). Mandatory action: Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.
Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.
EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).
| # | Date | Old EPSS score | New EPSS score | Delta (New - Old) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2026-06-15 | 0.01% | 0.07% | +0.06% |
| 2 | 2026-06-12 | — | 0.01% | — |
Full EPSS history (2 records total)
CVSS metrics for this CVE.
| Base score | Version | Severity | Vector | Exploitability | Impact | Score source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5.0 | 3.1 | MEDIUM |
|
0.8 | 4.2 | [email protected] |
| vendor | priority | summary | link |
|---|---|---|---|
debian
|
not yet assigned | CVE-2026-54055 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (kitty), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): open 3, resolved 2. | https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2026-54055 |
| Vendor | Product | Version | Raw CPE |
|---|---|---|---|
| No affected products in dataset. | |||