CVE-2026-24252: NVIDIA NeMo RCE Vulnerability

CVE-2026-24252 Overview

NVIDIA NeMo for Linux contains an operating system (OS) command injection vulnerability tracked as CVE-2026-24252. An authenticated local attacker can inject arbitrary shell commands through affected functionality in the NeMo framework. Successful exploitation leads to code execution, data tampering, privilege escalation, and information disclosure on the host system. The weakness is classified under CWE-78, Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an OS Command.

Critical Impact
Local attackers with low privileges can execute arbitrary OS commands, resulting in full compromise of confidentiality, integrity, and availability on hosts running NVIDIA NeMo for Linux.

Affected Products

NVIDIA NeMo for Linux

Discovery Timeline

2026-07-27 - CVE-2026-24252 published to the National Vulnerability Database (NVD)
2026-07-28 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2026-24252

Vulnerability Analysis

CVE-2026-24252 is an OS command injection flaw in NVIDIA NeMo, a framework used to build and train generative artificial intelligence (AI) models on Linux systems. The vulnerability allows an attacker with local access and low privileges to influence the construction of a shell command executed by NeMo. Because input is passed to an OS shell without sufficient neutralization, an attacker can append or substitute shell metacharacters and execute arbitrary commands under the privileges of the NeMo process.

Exploitation requires no user interaction. The resulting execution context enables data tampering, escalation of privileges, and disclosure of sensitive information such as model artifacts, training data, and credentials stored on the host.

Root Cause

The root cause is improper neutralization of special elements used in an OS command ([CWE-78]). NeMo passes attacker-controllable input into a shell invocation without adequate sanitization, quoting, or use of parameterized process APIs. Shell metacharacters such as ;, |, &, backticks, and $() are interpreted by the shell rather than treated as literal data.

Attack Vector

The attack vector is local. An attacker who can supply input to a vulnerable NeMo interface, whether through a command-line argument, configuration file, or API parameter processed on the host, can inject commands that the shell executes. No verified public proof-of-concept is available at the time of writing. For technical details, review the NVIDIA Support Article and the NVD CVE-2026-24252 Detail.

Detection Methods for CVE-2026-24252

Indicators of Compromise

Unexpected child processes such as /bin/sh, /bin/bash, wget, curl, or nc spawned by Python interpreters running NeMo modules.
New or modified files in NeMo working directories, model checkpoint paths, or user home directories that do not correspond to legitimate training runs.
Outbound network connections initiated from NeMo host processes to previously unseen destinations.

Detection Strategies

Monitor process ancestry to flag shell interpreters launched by Python processes hosting NeMo, especially when command lines contain shell metacharacters.
Correlate file writes to system directories and cron paths with NeMo process identifiers to surface post-exploitation persistence.
Alert on execution of reconnaissance binaries such as id, whoami, uname, or hostname originating from NeMo process trees.

Monitoring Recommendations

Enable Linux audit rules (auditd) for execve calls made by users and service accounts running NeMo workloads.
Ingest endpoint telemetry into a centralized data lake to retain process, file, and network events for retrospective hunting.
Baseline normal NeMo command-line invocations so anomalous arguments containing shell metacharacters can be identified quickly.

How to Mitigate CVE-2026-24252

Immediate Actions Required

Inventory hosts running NVIDIA NeMo and identify user accounts with local access to those systems.
Apply the patch or fixed version referenced in the NVIDIA Support Article as soon as it is available for your deployment.
Restrict interactive and remote access to NeMo hosts to trusted administrators and pipeline service accounts only.

Patch Information

NVIDIA has published guidance for CVE-2026-24252 in security bulletin answer ID 5839. Consult the bulletin for fixed versions and upgrade instructions specific to your NeMo release. Additional metadata is available in the CVE.org CVE-2026-24252 Record.

Workarounds

Run NeMo processes under dedicated, unprivileged service accounts to limit the blast radius of command injection.
Constrain NeMo workloads inside containers or namespaces with seccomp, AppArmor, or SELinux profiles that block execution of shells and network utilities.
Validate and sanitize all user-supplied inputs, configuration files, and dataset paths before passing them to NeMo entry points.

bash

# Configuration example: restrict NeMo execution to a dedicated user
# and block shell spawning via a seccomp profile
sudo useradd --system --shell /usr/sbin/nologin nemo-svc
sudo chown -R nemo-svc:nemo-svc /opt/nemo
sudo -u nemo-svc systemd-run --uid=nemo-svc \
    --property=NoNewPrivileges=yes \
    --property=SystemCallFilter=~execve_shell \
    /opt/nemo/venv/bin/python -m nemo.launch --config /opt/nemo/config.yaml