Quick answers
- Is CVE-2026-111802 exploited in the wild?
- No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of CVE-2026-111802 being exploited in the wild.
- How severe is CVE-2026-111802?
- Medium severity, with a CVSS score of 6.6, published 16 October 2026.
- Which products and versions are affected?
- GNOME Nautilus.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2026-111802?
- No fixed version is recorded yet. Do not select "Empty" when prompted to empty trash upon ejecting USB devices, or disable the "Empty Trash" functionality when ejecting removable media.</anigation> <parameter name="timeline">[{"kind": "disclosed", "at": "2026-10-16"}] If you run it, Junglewise drafts a mitigation that fits your setup and applies it once you approve, with senior security engineers behind it.
- How is CVE-2026-111802 attacked?
- It is attacked with local access, in a software library.
- Am I affected by CVE-2026-111802?
- Check whether you run Gnome Nautilus. Junglewise does that check for you around the clock: connect your code, cloud and domains, and it matches new vulnerabilities like this one against what you actually run and tells you when one reaches you.
How to fix
Do not select "Empty" when prompted to empty trash upon ejecting USB devices, or disable the "Empty Trash" functionality when ejecting removable media.</anigation> <parameter name="timeline">[{"kind": "disclosed", "at": "2026-10-16"}]
Technical details
The vulnerability is a symlink-following flaw (CWE-59) in Nautilus's trash-emptying logic. When a removable drive is unmounted, Nautilus prompts the user to empty trash without validating whether trash directory paths are symbolic links, allowing an attacker to craft a malicious storage volume with symlinked trash directories. Successful exploitation requires the victim to mount the crafted volume, confirm the trash-deletion prompt, and have local user privileges; no code execution or privilege escalation occurs.
Affected products
- GNOME Nautilus