A WebExtension can request access to local files without the warning prompt stating that the extension will "Access your data for all websites" being displayed to the user. This allows extensions to run content scripts in local pages without permission warnings when a local file is opened. This vulnerability affects Firefox ESR < 60.3 and Firefox < 63.

The default cloud-init configuration, in cloud-init 0.6.2 and newer, included "ssh_deletekeys: 0", disabling cloud-init's deletion of ssh host keys. In some environments, this could lead to instances created by cloning a golden master or template system, sharing ssh host keys, and being able to impersonate one another or conduct man-in-the-middle attacks.

In the Linux kernel before 5.7.8, fs/nfsd/vfs.c (in the NFS server) can set incorrect permissions on new filesystem objects when the filesystem lacks ACL support, aka CID-22cf8419f131. This occurs because the current umask is not considered.

An issue was discovered in LinuxTV xawtv before 3.107. The function dev_open() in v4l-conf.c does not perform sufficient checks to prevent an unprivileged caller of the program from opening unintended filesystem paths. This allows a local attacker with access to the v4l-conf setuid-root program to test for the existence of arbitrary files and to trigger an open on arbitrary files with mode O_RDWR. To achieve this, relative path components need to be added to the device path, as demonstrated by a v4l-conf -c /dev/../root/.bash_history command.

A flaw was discovered in ibus in versions before 1.5.22 that allows any unprivileged user to monitor and send method calls to the ibus bus of another user due to a misconfiguration in the DBus server setup. A local attacker may use this flaw to intercept all keystrokes of a victim user who is using the graphical interface, change the input method engine, or modify other input related configurations of the victim user.

Heap-based buffer overflow in SPICE before 0.12.6 allows guest OS users to read and write to arbitrary memory locations on the host via guest QXL commands related to surface creation.

An exploitable shared memory permissions vulnerability exists in the functionality of X11 Mesa 3D Graphics Library 19.1.2. An attacker can access the shared memory without any specific permissions to trigger this vulnerability.

The audit_syscall_entry function in the Linux kernel 2.6.28.7 and earlier on the x86_64 platform does not properly handle (1) a 32-bit process making a 64-bit syscall or (2) a 64-bit process making a 32-bit syscall, which allows local users to bypass certain syscall audit configurations via crafted syscalls, a related issue to CVE-2009-0342 and CVE-2009-0343.

sosreport in SoS 3.x allows local users to obtain sensitive information from sosreport files or gain privileges via a symlink attack on an archive file in a temporary directory, as demonstrated by sosreport-$hostname-$date.tar in /tmp/sosreport-$hostname-$date.

dmrc.c in Light Display Manager (aka LightDM) before 1.1.1 allows local users to read arbitrary files via a symlink attack on ~/.dmrc.

DistUpgrade/DistUpgradeViewKDE.py in Update Manager before 1:0.87.31.1, 1:0.134.x before 1:0.134.11.1, 1:0.142.x before 1:0.142.23.1, 1:0.150.x before 1:0.150.5.1, and 1:0.152.x before 1:0.152.25.5 does not properly create temporary files, which allows local users to obtain the XAUTHORITY file content for a user via a symlink attack on the temporary file.

The configure script in D-Bus (aka DBus) 1.2.x before 1.2.28 allows local users to overwrite arbitrary files via a symlink attack on an unspecified file in /tmp/.

In Perl through 5.26.2, the Archive::Tar module allows remote attackers to bypass a directory-traversal protection mechanism, and overwrite arbitrary files, via an archive file containing a symlink and a regular file with the same name.

snapd 2.54.2 did not properly validate the location of the snap-confine binary. A local attacker who can hardlink this binary to another location to cause snap-confine to execute other arbitrary binaries and hence gain privilege escalation. Fixed in snapd versions 2.54.3+18.04, 2.54.3+20.04 and 2.54.3+21.10.1

In the cron package through 3.0pl1-128 on Debian, and through 3.0pl1-128ubuntu2 on Ubuntu, the postinst maintainer script allows for group-crontab-to-root privilege escalation via symlink attacks against unsafe usage of the chown and chmod programs.

The Debian pg_ctlcluster, pg_createcluster, and pg_upgradecluster scripts, as distributed in the Debian postgresql-common package before 181+deb9u1 for PostgreSQL (and other packages related to Debian and Ubuntu), handled symbolic links insecurely, which could result in local denial of service by overwriting arbitrary files.

Apport creates a world writable lock file with root ownership in the world writable /var/lock/apport directory. If the apport/ directory does not exist (this is not uncommon as /var/lock is a tmpfs), it will create the directory, otherwise it will simply continue execution using the existing directory. This allows for a symlink attack if an attacker were to create a symlink at /var/lock/apport, changing apport's lock file location. This file could then be used to escalate privileges, for example. Fixed in versions 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.23, 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.14, 2.20.11-0ubuntu8.8 and 2.20.11-0ubuntu22.

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.)

pam_motd (aka the MOTD module) in libpam-modules before 1.1.0-2ubuntu1.1 in PAM on Ubuntu 9.10 and libpam-modules before 1.1.1-2ubuntu5 in PAM on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS allows local users to change the ownership of arbitrary files via a symlink attack on .cache in a user's home directory, related to "user file stamps" and the motd.legal-notice file.

The distcheck rule in dist-check.mk in GNU coreutils 5.2.1 through 8.1 allows local users to gain privileges via a symlink attack on a file in a directory tree under /tmp.

CUPS before 2.0 allows local users to read arbitrary files via a symlink attack on (1) index.html, (2) index.class, (3) index.pl, (4) index.php, (5) index.pyc, or (6) index.py.

scratchbox2 1.99.0.24 allows local users to overwrite arbitrary files via a symlink attack on (a) /tmp/dpkg.#####.tmp, (b) /tmp/missing_deps.#####, and (c) /tmp/sb2-pkg-chk.$tstamp.##### temporary files, related to the (1) dpkg-checkbuilddeps and (2) sb2-check-pkg-mappings scripts.

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.

The web interface in CUPS 1.7.4 allows local users in the lp group to read arbitrary files via a symlink attack on a file in /var/cache/cups/rss/ and language[0] set to null. NOTE: this vulnerability exists because of an incomplete fix for CVE-2014-3537.

checkinstall 1.6.2, when used to create a package that contains a symlink, may trigger the creation of a mode 0777 executable file.

It was discovered that read_file() in apport/hookutils.py would follow symbolic links or open FIFOs. When this function is used by the openjdk-16 package apport hooks, it could expose private data to other local users.

It was discovered that read_file() in apport/hookutils.py would follow symbolic links or open FIFOs. When this function is used by the openjdk-14 package apport hooks, it could expose private data to other local users.

On desktop, Ubuntu UI Toolkit's StateSaver would serialise data on tmp/ files which an attacker could use to expose potentially sensitive data. StateSaver would also open files without the O_EXCL flag. An attacker could exploit this to launch a symlink attack, though this is partially mitigated by symlink and hardlink restrictions in Ubuntu. Fixed in 1.1.1188+14.10.20140813.4-0ubuntu1.

In KDE Ark before 20.08.1, a crafted TAR archive with symlinks can install files outside the extraction directory, as demonstrated by a write operation to a user's home directory.

Net-SNMP through 5.7.3 allows Escalation of Privileges because of UNIX symbolic link (symlink) following.

A flaw was found in chrony versions before 3.5.1 when creating the PID file under the /var/run/chrony folder. The file is created during chronyd startup while still running as the root user, and when it's opened for writing, chronyd does not check for an existing symbolic link with the same file name. This flaw allows an attacker with privileged access to create a symlink with the default PID file name pointing to any destination file in the system, resulting in data loss and a denial of service due to the path traversal.

In libXfont before 1.5.4 and libXfont2 before 2.0.3, a local attacker can open (but not read) files on the system as root, triggering tape rewinds, watchdogs, or similar mechanisms that can be triggered by opening files.

The openTempFile function in goo/gfile.cc in Xpdf and Poppler 0.24.3 and earlier, when running on a system other than Unix, allows local users to overwrite arbitrary files via a symlink attack on temporary files with predictable names.

fr-archive-libarchive.c in GNOME file-roller through 3.36.1 allows Directory Traversal during extraction because it lacks a check of whether a file's parent is a symlink to a directory outside of the intended extraction location.

init_tmp in TeeJee.FileSystem.vala in Timeshift before 20.03 unsafely reuses a preexisting temporary directory in the predictable location /tmp/timeshift. It follows symlinks in this location or uses directories owned by unprivileged users. Because Timeshift also executes scripts under this location, an attacker can attempt to win a race condition to replace scripts created by Timeshift with attacker-controlled scripts. Upon success, an attacker-controlled script is executed with full root privileges. This logic is practically always triggered when Timeshift runs regardless of the command-line arguments used.

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.

snap-confine in snapd before 2.38 incorrectly set the ownership of a snap application to the uid and gid of the first calling user. Consequently, that user had unintended access to a private /tmp directory.

Kevin Backhouse discovered that apport would read a user-supplied configuration file with elevated privileges. By replacing the file with a symbolic link, a user could get apport to read any file on the system as root, with unknown consequences.

snap-confine as included in snapd before 2.39 did not guard against symlink races when performing the chdir() to the current working directory of the calling user, aka a "cwd restore permission bypass."

The MOTD update script in the base-files package in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS before 10.1ubuntu2.2, and Ubuntu 18.10 before 10.1ubuntu6 incorrectly handled temporary files. A local attacker could use this issue to cause a denial of service, or possibly escalate privileges if kernel symlink restrictions were disabled.

systemd-tmpfiles in systemd through 237 mishandles symlinks present in non-terminal path components, which allows local users to obtain ownership of arbitrary files via vectors involving creation of a directory and a file under that directory, and later replacing that directory with a symlink. This occurs even if the fs.protected_symlinks sysctl is turned on.

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.