The (1) tomcat5, (2) tomcat6, and (3) tomcat7 init scripts, as used in the RPM distribution of Tomcat for JBoss Enterprise Web Server 1.0.2 and 2.0.0, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6, allow local users to change the ownership of arbitrary files via a symlink attack on (a) tomcat5-initd.log, (b) tomcat6-initd.log, (c) catalina.out, or (d) tomcat7-initd.log.

HP Linux Imaging and Printing (HPLIP) through 3.12.4 allows local users to overwrite arbitrary files via a symlink attack on the (1) /tmp/hpcupsfilterc_#.bmp, (2) /tmp/hpcupsfilterk_#.bmp, (3) /tmp/hpcups_job#.out, (4) /tmp/hpijs_#####.out, or (5) /tmp/hpps_job#.out temporary file, a different vulnerability than CVE-2011-2722.

OpenFabrics ibutils 1.5.7 allows local users to overwrite arbitrary files via a symlink attack on (1) ibdiagnet.db, (2) ibdiagnet.fdbs, (3) ibdiagnet_ibis.log, (4) ibdiagnet.log, (5) ibdiagnet.lst, (6) ibdiagnet.mcfdbs, (7) ibdiagnet.pkey, (8) ibdiagnet.psl, (9) ibdiagnet.slvl, or (10) ibdiagnet.sm in /tmp/.

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.

A certain Red Hat script for sudo 1.7.2 on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5 allows local users to overwrite arbitrary files via a symlink attack on the /var/tmp/nsswitch.conf.bak temporary file.

The LiveUpdate capability (liveupdate.sh) in Symantec AntiVirus Scan Engine 4.0 and 4.3 for Red Hat Linux allows local users to create or append to arbitrary files via a symlink attack on /tmp/LiveUpdate.log.

A Zip Slip vulnerability was found in the oc binary in openshift-clients where an arbitrary file write is achieved by using a specially crafted raw container image (.tar file) which contains symbolic links. The vulnerability is limited to the command `oc image extract`. If a symbolic link is first created pointing within the tarball, this allows further symbolic links to bypass the existing path check. This flaw allows the tarball to create links outside the tarball's parent directory, allowing for executables or configuration files to be overwritten, resulting in arbitrary code execution. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to confidentiality, integrity, as well as system availability. Versions up to and including openshift-clients-4.7.0-202104250659.p0.git.95881af are affected.

The mountpoint_last function in fs/namei.c in the Linux kernel before 3.15.8 does not properly maintain a certain reference count during attempts to use the umount system call in conjunction with a symlink, which allows local users to cause a denial of service (memory consumption or use-after-free) or possibly have unspecified other impact via the umount program.

It was found that the fix for CVE-2018-10927, CVE-2018-10928, CVE-2018-10929, CVE-2018-10930, and CVE-2018-10926 was incomplete. A remote, authenticated attacker could use one of these flaws to execute arbitrary code, create arbitrary files, or cause denial of service on glusterfs server nodes via symlinks to relative paths.

Hardlink before 0.1.2 operates on full file system objects path names which can allow a local attacker to use this flaw to conduct symlink attacks.

Context relabeling of filesystems is vulnerable to symbolic link attack, allowing a local, unprivileged malicious entity to change the SELinux context of an arbitrary file to a context with few restrictions. This only happens when the relabeling process is done, usually when taking SELinux state from disabled to enable (permissive or enforcing). The issue was found in policycoreutils 2.5-11.

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..

All versions of Samba prior to 4.15.5 are vulnerable to a malicious client using a server symlink to determine if a file or directory exists in an area of the server file system not exported under the share definition. SMB1 with unix extensions has to be enabled in order for this attack to succeed.

A directory traversal issue was found in reposync, a part of yum-utils, where reposync fails to sanitize paths in remote repository configuration files. If an attacker controls a repository, they may be able to copy files outside of the destination directory on the targeted system via path traversal. If reposync is running with heightened privileges on a targeted system, this flaw could potentially result in system compromise via the overwriting of critical system files. Version 1.1.31 and older are believed to be affected.

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.

A flaw was found in instack-undercloud 7.2.0 as packaged in Red Hat OpenStack Platform Pike, 6.1.0 as packaged in Red Hat OpenStack Platform Oacta, 5.3.0 as packaged in Red Hat OpenStack Newton, where pre-install and security policy scripts used insecure temporary files. A local user could exploit this flaw to conduct a symbolic-link attack, allowing them to overwrite the contents of arbitrary files.

Samba before versions 4.6.1, 4.5.7 and 4.4.11 are vulnerable to a malicious client using a symlink race to allow access to areas of the server file system not exported under the share definition.

Privilege escalation flaws were found in the Red Hat initialization scripts of PostgreSQL. An attacker with access to the postgres user account could use these flaws to obtain root access on the server machine.

The LXC driver (lxc/lxc_driver.c) in libvirt 1.0.1 through 1.2.1 allows local users to (1) delete arbitrary host devices via the virDomainDeviceDettach API and a symlink attack on /dev in the container; (2) create arbitrary nodes (mknod) via the virDomainDeviceAttach API and a symlink attack on /dev in the container; and cause a denial of service (shutdown or reboot host OS) via the (3) virDomainShutdown or (4) virDomainReboot API and a symlink attack on /dev/initctl in the container, related to "paths under /proc/$PID/root" and the virInitctlSetRunLevel function.

(1) oo-analytics-export and (2) oo-analytics-import in the openshift-origin-broker-util package in Red Hat OpenShift Enterprise 1 and 2 allow local users to have unspecified impact via a symlink attack on an unspecified file in /tmp.

A flaw was found in katello-debug before 3.4.0 where certain scripts and log files used insecure temporary files. A local user could exploit this flaw to conduct a symbolic-link attack, allowing them to overwrite the contents of arbitrary files.

A race condition vulnerability was found in rpm. A local unprivileged user could use this flaw to bypass the checks that were introduced in response to CVE-2017-7500 and CVE-2017-7501, potentially gaining root privileges. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to data confidentiality and integrity as well as system availability.

A symbolic link issue was found in rpm. It occurs when rpm sets the desired permissions and credentials after installing a file. A local unprivileged user could use this flaw to exchange the original file with a symbolic link to a security-critical file and escalate their privileges on the system. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to data confidentiality and integrity as well as system availability.

It was found that the fix for CVE-2017-7500 and CVE-2017-7501 was incomplete: the check was only implemented for the parent directory of the file to be created. A local unprivileged user who owns another ancestor directory could potentially use this flaw to gain root privileges. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to data confidentiality and integrity as well as system availability.

The SPICE Firefox plug-in (spice-xpi) 2.4, 2.3, 2.2, and possibly other versions allows local users to overwrite arbitrary files via a symlink attack on the usbrdrctl log file, which has a predictable name.

A flaw was found in Mercurial before 4.9. It was possible to use symlinks and subrepositories to defeat Mercurial's path-checking logic and write files outside a repository.

The SPICE (aka spice-xpi) plug-in 2.2 for Firefox allows local users to overwrite arbitrary files via a symlink attack on an unspecified log file.

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.

The kubectl cp command allows copying files between containers and the user machine. To copy files from a container, Kubernetes creates a tar inside the container, copies it over the network, and kubectl unpacks it on the user’s machine. If the tar binary in the container is malicious, it could run any code and output unexpected, malicious results. An attacker could use this to write files to any path on the user’s machine when kubectl cp is called, limited only by the system permissions of the local user. The untar function can both create and follow symbolic links. The issue is resolved in kubectl v1.11.9, v1.12.7, v1.13.5, and v1.14.0.

The configtest function in the Red Hat dhcpd init script for DHCP 3.0.1 in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 3 allows local users to overwrite arbitrary files via a symlink attack on an unspecified temporary file, related to the "dhcpd -t" command.

A flaw was found in Go. When FIPS mode is enabled on a system, container runtimes may incorrectly handle certain file paths due to improper validation in the containers/common Go library. This flaw allows an attacker to exploit symbolic links and trick the system into mounting sensitive host directories inside a container. This issue also allows attackers to access critical host files, bypassing the intended isolation between containers and the host system.

The Firefox updater created a directory writable by non-privileged users. When uninstalling Firefox, any files in that directory would be recursively deleted with the permissions of the uninstalling user account. This could be combined with creation of a junction (a form of symbolic link) to allow arbitrary file deletion controlled by the non-privileged user. *This bug only affects Firefox on Windows. Other operating systems are unaffected.* This vulnerability affects Firefox < 116, Firefox ESR < 115.1, and Thunderbird < 115.1.

The init script in autokey before 0.61.3-2 allows local attackers to write to arbitrary files via a symlink attack.

The %PROGRAMDATA%\1E\Client directory in 1E Client 5.0.0.745 and 4.1.0.267 allows remote authenticated users and local users to create and modify files in protected directories (where they would not normally have access to create or modify files) via the creation of a junction point to a system directory. This leads to partial privilege escalation.