CVE-2021-20197

low-risk
Published 2021-03-26

There is an open race window when writing output in the following utilities in GNU binutils version 2.35 and earlier:ar, objcopy, strip, ranlib. When these utilities are run as a privileged user (presumably as part of a script updating binaries across different users), an unprivileged user can trick these utilities into getting ownership of arbitrary files through a symlink.

Do I need to act?

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0.11% chance of exploitation
EPSS score — low exploit probability
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Not on CISA KEV list
No confirmed active exploitation reported to CISA
?
Patch status unknown
Check vendor advisories for fix availability and mitigation guidance
6
CVSS 6.3/10 Medium
LOCAL / HIGH complexity

Affected Products (6)

Affected Vendors

Redhat Gnu Broadcom Netapp

References (8)

Issue Tracking https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1913743
Third Party Advisory https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202208-30
Third Party Advisory https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20210528-0009/
Issue Tracking https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=26945
Issue Tracking https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1913743
Third Party Advisory https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202208-30
Third Party Advisory https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20210528-0009/
Issue Tracking https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=26945
29
/ 100
low-risk
Severity 16/34 · Moderate
Exploitability 0/34 · Minimal
Exposure 13/34 · Low