CVE-2026-108981

Description

ngx_cache_purge before 3.0.4 can allow file deletion via a symlink attack in certain situations where nginx and a served application (e.g., WordPress) run under the same user account. The attacker must be able to create a symlink inside the cache path. Version 3.0.4 fixes this for the case of a symlink created at an arbitrary earlier time, but does not resolve an applicable TOCTOU race condition. (The ngx_cache_purge module follows symlinks while walking the cache directory tree during purge operations. The module relies on nginx's ngx_walk_tree(), which relies on stat() and therefore follows symlinks.)

• How can I get the fixes?
• What do statuses mean?

Severity score breakdown

CVSS version: CVSS v3.0

References

• MITRE
• NVD
• Launchpad
• Debian

Other references

• https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-108981
• https://github.com/nginx-modules/ngx_cache_purge/commit/a6da1352f52a8a02dd6828e88c39ed42fddcee96
• https://github.com/nginx-modules/ngx_cache_purge/pull/72
• https://github.com/nginx-modules/ngx_cache_purge/releases/tag/3.0.4