What is race condition?

How it works

Race condition attacks occur when two or more processes are executed concurrently, and the outcome of a specific operation is altered. An attacker identifies the vulnerable code section and creates a race condition between concurrently executed processes to achieve the desired outcome.

Defense checklist6

1. 01

   Protect critical code sections with mutex or other synchronization mechanisms

2. 02

   Optimize your code to minimize races between concurrently executed processes

3. 03

   Regularly audit your code to detect vulnerabilities

4. 04

   Apply security updates and patches in a timely manner

5. 05

   Implement the principle of least privilege to minimize privileges

6. 06

   Regularly update your systems and applications

Real-world evidence

RefluXFS (CVE-2026-64600), Ubuntu snap-confine vulnerability, CVE-2026-28982, CVE-2026-28926, CVE-2026-43693, CVE-2026-51261, and CVE-2026-0295 incidents are examples of race condition attacks. In these incidents, attackers exploited race condition vulnerabilities to escalate privileges or cause unexpected system termination locally or remotely.

Sources

• ▸RefluXFS: A Linux Kernel Local Privilege Escalation to Root in XFS (CVE-2026-64600)bleepingcomputer
• ▸Ubuntu snap-confine Vulnerability Enables Local Root Accessinfosecurity_mag
• ▸CVE-2026-28982: A race condition was addressed with improved locking. This issue is fixed in macOS Sequoianvd
• ▸CVE-2026-28926: A race condition was addressed with improved state handling. This issue is fixed in macOSnvd
• ▸CVE-2026-43693: A race condition was addressed with improved state handling. This issue is fixed in macOSnvd
• ▸CVE-2026-51261: Missing mutex synchronization in AudioBuffer::freeSpace() in schreibfaul1 ESP32-audioI2S 3nvd
• ▸CVE-2026-0295: A race condition in the Palo Alto Networks GlobalProtect™ client on macOS enables a locallnvd