External Control of System or Configuration Setting in Pi-hole - CVE-2026-41489
Published: April 25, 2026
Vulnerability identifier: #VU127882
CSH Severity: Low
CVSS v4.0: CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:U/U:Clear
CVE-ID: CVE-2026-41489
CWE-ID: CWE-15
Exploitation vector: Local access
Exploit availability:
No public exploit available
Vendor: Pi-hole
Affected software:
Pi-hole
Pi-hole
Detailed vulnerability description
The vulnerability allows a local user to escalate privileges.
The vulnerability exists due to external control of a configuration setting in root-executed service hook scripts when reading the files.pid path from /etc/pihole/pihole.toml. A local user can write an arbitrary path into the configuration and trigger a service restart to escalate privileges.
The issue can be exploited through the pihole-FTL-prestart.sh and pihole-FTL-poststop.sh hooks, which run as root via systemd and perform privileged file operations on the configured path.
How to mitigate CVE-2026-41489
Install security update from vendor's website.