CVE-2026-54055

Description

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.

Weakness classification

• security-advisories@github.com: CWE-59

Primary references

• security-advisories@github.com — Mitigation, Vendor Advisory
• 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0 — Mitigation, Vendor Advisory