The postfix.postinst script in the Debian GNU/Linux and Ubuntu postfix 2.5.5 package grants the postfix user write access to /var/spool/postfix/pid, which might allow local users to conduct symlink attacks that overwrite arbitrary files.

An issue was discovered in Cinnamon 1.9.2 through 3.8.6. The cinnamon-settings-users.py GUI runs as root and allows configuration of (for example) other users' icon files in _on_face_browse_menuitem_activated and _on_face_menuitem_activated. These icon files are written to the respective user's $HOME/.face location. If an unprivileged user prepares a symlink pointing to an arbitrary location, then this location will be overwritten with the icon content.

Xfig, possibly 3.2.5, allows local users to read and write arbitrary files via a symlink attack on the (1) xfig-eps[PID], (2) xfig-pic[PID].pix, (3) xfig-pic[PID].err, (4) xfig-pcx[PID].pix, (5) xfig-xfigrc[PID], (6) xfig[PID], (7) xfig-print[PID], (8) xfig-export[PID].err, (9) xfig-batch[PID], (10) xfig-exp[PID], or (11) xfig-spell.[PID] temporary files, where [PID] is a process ID.

multipath-tools 0.7.7 through 0.9.x before 0.9.2 allows local users to obtain root access, as exploited in conjunction with CVE-2022-41974. Local users able to access /dev/shm can change symlinks in multipathd due to incorrect symlink handling, which could lead to controlled file writes outside of the /dev/shm directory. This could be used indirectly for local privilege escalation to root.

os-prober in os-prober 1.17 allows local users to overwrite arbitrary files via a symlink attack on the (1) /tmp/mounted-map or (2) /tmp/raided-map temporary file. NOTE: the vendor disputes this issue, stating "the insecure code path should only ever run inside a d-i environment, which has no non-root users.

mkmailpost in newsgate 1.6 allows local users to overwrite arbitrary files via a symlink attack on a /tmp/mmp##### temporary file.

gccross in dpkg-cross 2.3.0 allows local users to overwrite arbitrary files via a symlink attack on the tmp/gccross2.log temporary file. NOTE: the vendor disputes this vulnerability, stating that "There is no sense in this bug - the script ... is called under specific cross-building environments within a chroot.

A certain Debian patch to the run scripts for sabre (aka xsabre) 0.2.4b allows local users to delete or overwrite arbitrary files via a symlink attack on unspecified .tmp files.

rubyzip gem rubyzip version 1.2.1 and earlier contains a Directory Traversal vulnerability in Zip::File component that can result in write arbitrary files to the filesystem. This attack appear to be exploitable via If a site allows uploading of .zip files , an attacker can upload a malicious file that contains symlinks or files with absolute pathnames "../" to write arbitrary files to the filesystem..

trend-autoupdate.new in mailscanner 4.55.10 and other versions before 4.74.16-1 allows local users to overwrite arbitrary files via a symlink attack on a (1) /tmp/opr.ini.##### or (2) /tmp/lpt*.zip temporary file.

A flaw was found in RPC request using gfs3_symlink_req in glusterfs server which allows symlink destinations to point to file paths outside of the gluster volume. An authenticated attacker could use this flaw to create arbitrary symlinks pointing anywhere on the server and execute arbitrary code on glusterfs server nodes.

kwallet-pam in KDE KWallet before 5.12.6 allows local users to obtain ownership of arbitrary files via a symlink attack.

i2myspell in myspell 3.1 allows local users to overwrite arbitrary files via a symlink attack on (1) /tmp/i2my#####.1 and (2) /tmp/i2my#####.2 temporary files.

The to-upgrade plugin in feta 1.4.16 allows local users to overwrite arbitrary files via a symlink on the (1) /tmp/feta.install.$USER and (2) /tmp/feta.avail.$USER temporary files.

test.sh in Honeyd 1.5c might allow local users to overwrite arbitrary files via a symlink attack on a temporary file.

MySQL before 5.0.67 allows local users to bypass certain privilege checks by calling CREATE TABLE on a MyISAM table with modified (1) DATA DIRECTORY or (2) INDEX DIRECTORY arguments that are originally associated with pathnames without symlinks, and that can point to tables created at a future time at which a pathname is modified to contain a symlink to a subdirectory of the MySQL home data directory. NOTE: this vulnerability exists because of an incomplete fix for CVE-2008-4097.

migrate_aliases.sh in Citadel Server 7.37 allows local users to overwrite arbitrary files via a symlink attack on a temporary file.

The save function in br/prefmanager.d in projectl 1.001 creates a projectL.prf file in the current working directory, which allows local users to overwrite arbitrary files via a symlink attack.

aptlinex before 0.91 allows local users to overwrite arbitrary files via a symlink attack on the gambas-apt.lock temporary file.

Git is an open source, scalable, distributed revision control system. Versions prior to 2.30.6, 2.31.5, 2.32.4, 2.33.5, 2.34.5, 2.35.5, 2.36.3, and 2.37.4 are subject to exposure of sensitive information to a malicious actor. When performing a local clone (where the source and target of the clone are on the same volume), Git copies the contents of the source's `$GIT_DIR/objects` directory into the destination by either creating hardlinks to the source contents, or copying them (if hardlinks are disabled via `--no-hardlinks`). A malicious actor could convince a victim to clone a repository with a symbolic link pointing at sensitive information on the victim's machine. This can be done either by having the victim clone a malicious repository on the same machine, or having them clone a malicious repository embedded as a bare repository via a submodule from any source, provided they clone with the `--recurse-submodules` option. Git does not create symbolic links in the `$GIT_DIR/objects` directory. The problem has been patched in the versions published on 2022-10-18, and backported to v2.30.x. Potential workarounds: Avoid cloning untrusted repositories using the `--local` optimization when on a shared machine, either by passing the `--no-local` option to `git clone` or cloning from a URL that uses the `file://` scheme. Alternatively, avoid cloning repositories from untrusted sources with `--recurse-submodules` or run `git config --global protocol.file.allow user`.

w_editeur.c in XWine 1.0.1 for Debian GNU/Linux allows local users to overwrite or print arbitrary files via a symlink attack on the temporaire temporary file. NOTE: some of these details are obtained from third party information.

The write_array_file function in utils/include.pl in GForge 4.5.14 updates configuration files by truncating them to zero length and then writing new data, which might allow attackers to bypass intended access restrictions or have unspecified other impact in opportunistic circumstances.

vobcopy 0.5.14 allows local users to append data to an arbitrary file, or create an arbitrary new file, via a symlink attack on the (1) /tmp/vobcopy.bla or (2) /tmp/vobcopy_0.5.14.log temporary file.

storeBackup.pl in storeBackup through 3.5 relies on the /tmp/storeBackup.lock pathname, which allows symlink attacks that possibly lead to privilege escalation. (Local users can also create a plain file named /tmp/storeBackup.lock to block use of storeBackup until an admin manually deletes that file.)

Mercurial prior to version 4.3 is vulnerable to a missing symlink check that can malicious repositories to modify files outside the repository

The postinst script in the tomcat6 package before 6.0.45+dfsg-1~deb7u4 on Debian wheezy, before 6.0.35-1ubuntu3.9 on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS; the tomcat7 package before 7.0.28-4+deb7u8 on Debian wheezy, before 7.0.56-3+deb8u6 on Debian jessie, before 7.0.52-1ubuntu0.8 on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, and on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, 16.04 LTS, and 16.10; and the tomcat8 package before 8.0.14-1+deb8u5 on Debian jessie, before 8.0.32-1ubuntu1.3 on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, before 8.0.37-1ubuntu0.1 on Ubuntu 16.10, and before 8.0.38-2ubuntu1 on Ubuntu 17.04 might allow local users with access to the tomcat account to obtain sensitive information or gain root privileges via a symlink attack on the Catalina localhost directory.

squashfs_opendir in unsquash-2.c in Squashfs-Tools 4.5 allows Directory Traversal, a different vulnerability than CVE-2021-40153. A squashfs filesystem that has been crafted to include a symbolic link and then contents under the same filename in a filesystem can cause unsquashfs to first create the symbolic link pointing outside the expected directory, and then the subsequent write operation will cause the unsquashfs process to write through the symbolic link elsewhere in the filesystem.

Race condition in cpio 2.6 and earlier allows local users to modify permissions of arbitrary files via a hard link attack on a file while it is being decompressed, whose permissions are changed by cpio after the decompression is complete.

The mysqlaccess script in MySQL 4.0.23 and earlier, 4.1.x before 4.1.10, 5.0.x before 5.0.3, and other versions including 3.x, allows local users to overwrite arbitrary files or read temporary files via a symlink attack on temporary files.

Git is a fast, scalable, distributed revision control system with an unusually rich command set that provides both high-level operations and full access to internals. When reading a config value, Git strips any trailing carriage return and line feed (CRLF). When writing a config entry, values with a trailing CR are not quoted, causing the CR to be lost when the config is later read. When initializing a submodule, if the submodule path contains a trailing CR, the altered path is read resulting in the submodule being checked out to an incorrect location. If a symlink exists that points the altered path to the submodule hooks directory, and the submodule contains an executable post-checkout hook, the script may be unintentionally executed after checkout. This vulnerability is fixed in v2.43.7, v2.44.4, v2.45.4, v2.46.4, v2.47.3, v2.48.2, v2.49.1, and v2.50.1.

KDE before 3.3.0 does not properly handle when certain symbolic links point to "stale" locations, which could allow local users to create or truncate arbitrary files.

Inappropriate implementation in Google Updater in Google Chrome on Windows prior to 94.0.4606.54 allowed a remote attacker to perform local privilege escalation via a crafted file.

The init script in the Debian x11-common package before 1:7.6+12 is vulnerable to a symlink attack that can lead to a privilege escalation during package installation.

The npm package "tar" (aka node-tar) before versions 4.4.18, 5.0.10, and 6.1.9 has an arbitrary file creation/overwrite and arbitrary code execution vulnerability. node-tar aims to guarantee that any file whose location would be modified by a symbolic link is not extracted. This is, in part, achieved by ensuring that extracted directories are not symlinks. Additionally, in order to prevent unnecessary stat calls to determine whether a given path is a directory, paths are cached when directories are created. This logic was insufficient when extracting tar files that contained both a directory and a symlink with names containing unicode values that normalized to the same value. Additionally, on Windows systems, long path portions would resolve to the same file system entities as their 8.3 "short path" counterparts. A specially crafted tar archive could thus include a directory with one form of the path, followed by a symbolic link with a different string that resolves to the same file system entity, followed by a file using the first form. By first creating a directory, and then replacing that directory with a symlink that had a different apparent name that resolved to the same entry in the filesystem, it was thus possible to bypass node-tar symlink checks on directories, essentially allowing an untrusted tar file to symlink into an arbitrary location and subsequently extracting arbitrary files into that location, thus allowing arbitrary file creation and overwrite. These issues were addressed in releases 4.4.18, 5.0.10 and 6.1.9. The v3 branch of node-tar has been deprecated and did not receive patches for these issues. If you are still using a v3 release we recommend you update to a more recent version of node-tar. If this is not possible, a workaround is available in the referenced GHSA-qq89-hq3f-393p.

The npm package "tar" (aka node-tar) before versions 4.4.16, 5.0.8, and 6.1.7 has an arbitrary file creation/overwrite and arbitrary code execution vulnerability. node-tar aims to guarantee that any file whose location would be modified by a symbolic link is not extracted. This is, in part, achieved by ensuring that extracted directories are not symlinks. Additionally, in order to prevent unnecessary stat calls to determine whether a given path is a directory, paths are cached when directories are created. This logic was insufficient when extracting tar files that contained both a directory and a symlink with the same name as the directory, where the symlink and directory names in the archive entry used backslashes as a path separator on posix systems. The cache checking logic used both `\` and `/` characters as path separators, however `\` is a valid filename character on posix systems. By first creating a directory, and then replacing that directory with a symlink, it was thus possible to bypass node-tar symlink checks on directories, essentially allowing an untrusted tar file to symlink into an arbitrary location and subsequently extracting arbitrary files into that location, thus allowing arbitrary file creation and overwrite. Additionally, a similar confusion could arise on case-insensitive filesystems. If a tar archive contained a directory at `FOO`, followed by a symbolic link named `foo`, then on case-insensitive file systems, the creation of the symbolic link would remove the directory from the filesystem, but _not_ from the internal directory cache, as it would not be treated as a cache hit. A subsequent file entry within the `FOO` directory would then be placed in the target of the symbolic link, thinking that the directory had already been created. These issues were addressed in releases 4.4.16, 5.0.8 and 6.1.7. The v3 branch of node-tar has been deprecated and did not receive patches for these issues. If you are still using a v3 release we recommend you update to a more recent version of node-tar. If this is not possible, a workaround is available in the referenced GHSA-9r2w-394v-53qc.

ikiwiki before 3.20110608 allows remote attackers to hijack root's tty and run symlink attacks.

The pg_ctlcluster script in postgresql-common package in Debian wheezy before 134wheezy5, in Debian jessie before 165+deb8u2, in Debian unstable before 178, in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS before 129ubuntu1.2, in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS before 154ubuntu1.1, in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS before 173ubuntu0.1, in Ubuntu 17.04 before 179ubuntu0.1, and in Ubuntu 17.10 before 184ubuntu1.1 allows local users to gain root privileges via a symlink attack on a logfile in /var/log/postgresql.

In Archive_Tar before 1.4.14, symlinks can refer to targets outside of the extracted archive, a different vulnerability than CVE-2020-36193.

An improper link resolution flaw can occur while extracting an archive leading to changing modes, times, access control lists, and flags of a file outside of the archive. An attacker may provide a malicious archive to a victim user, who would trigger this flaw when trying to extract the archive. A local attacker may use this flaw to gain more privileges in a system.

An issue was discovered in GNOME GLib before 2.66.8. When g_file_replace() is used with G_FILE_CREATE_REPLACE_DESTINATION to replace a path that is a dangling symlink, it incorrectly also creates the target of the symlink as an empty file, which could conceivably have security relevance if the symlink is attacker-controlled. (If the path is a symlink to a file that already exists, then the contents of that file correctly remain unchanged.)

The changelog command in Apt before 1.0.9.2 allows local users to write to arbitrary files via a symlink attack on the changelog file.

Mumble before 1.3.4 allows remote code execution if a victim navigates to a crafted URL on a server list and clicks on the Open Webpage text.

The sudoedit personality of Sudo before 1.9.5 may allow a local unprivileged user to perform arbitrary directory-existence tests by winning a sudo_edit.c race condition in replacing a user-controlled directory by a symlink to an arbitrary path.

An improper link resolution flaw while extracting an archive can lead to changing the access control list (ACL) of the target of the link. An attacker may provide a malicious archive to a victim user, who would trigger this flaw when trying to extract the archive. A local attacker may use this flaw to change the ACL of a file on the system and gain more privileges.

Git is an open-source distributed revision control system. In affected versions of Git a specially crafted repository that contains symbolic links as well as files using a clean/smudge filter such as Git LFS, may cause just-checked out script to be executed while cloning onto a case-insensitive file system such as NTFS, HFS+ or APFS (i.e. the default file systems on Windows and macOS). Note that clean/smudge filters have to be configured for that. Git for Windows configures Git LFS by default, and is therefore vulnerable. The problem has been patched in the versions published on Tuesday, March 9th, 2021. As a workaound, if symbolic link support is disabled in Git (e.g. via `git config --global core.symlinks false`), the described attack won't work. Likewise, if no clean/smudge filters such as Git LFS are configured globally (i.e. _before_ cloning), the attack is foiled. As always, it is best to avoid cloning repositories from untrusted sources. The earliest impacted version is 2.14.2. The fix versions are: 2.30.1, 2.29.3, 2.28.1, 2.27.1, 2.26.3, 2.25.5, 2.24.4, 2.23.4, 2.22.5, 2.21.4, 2.20.5, 2.19.6, 2.18.5, 2.17.62.17.6.

RARLAB UnRAR before 6.12 on Linux and UNIX allows directory traversal to write to files during an extract (aka unpack) operation, as demonstrated by creating a ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file. NOTE: WinRAR and Android RAR are unaffected.

avahi-daemon-check-dns.sh in the Debian avahi package through 0.8-4 is executed as root via /etc/network/if-up.d/avahi-daemon, and allows a local attacker to cause a denial of service or create arbitrary empty files via a symlink attack on files under /run/avahi-daemon. NOTE: this only affects the packaging for Debian GNU/Linux (used indirectly by SUSE), not the upstream Avahi product.

Lintian before 2.5.12 allows remote attackers to gather information about the "host" system using crafted symlinks.

Inappropriate implementation in installer in Google Chrome prior to 84.0.4147.125 allowed a local attacker to potentially elevate privilege via a crafted filesystem.

Tar.php in Archive_Tar through 1.4.11 allows write operations with Directory Traversal due to inadequate checking of symbolic links, a related issue to CVE-2020-28948.