3 ms·
Most of them are TOCTOU races or improperly following symbolic links. For example, uutils mkfifo(1) would create a world-readable and writable FIFO before using
by collinfunk 18d ago
Most of them are TOCTOU races or improperly following symbolic links. For example, uutils mkfifo(1) would create a world-readable and writable FIFO before using chmod(2) to restrict its permissions. Another user could replace that file with a symbolic link between the mkfifo(3) call and the chmod(2) to change the permissions of arbitrary files [1].
Other ones I find concerning are that you could also bypass '-- no-preserve-root' with a symbolic link to root [2]. Or by using paths equivalent to "/", e.g., "/../" [3]. Historically, GNU coreutils has been pretty good with symbolic links and avoiding TOCTOU races. The only notable one I can remember is a chmod(1) bug [4].
I agree with your general point that the number of CVEs is a useless metric, though.
[1] https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/cve-2026-35352 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/cve-2026-35352
[2] https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/cve-2026-35349 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/cve-2026-35349
[3] https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/cve-2026-35338 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/cve-2026-35338
[4] https://github.com/coreutils/coreutils/commit/425b8a2f534fe02e8c1e39ad6a3d2c18eca12de3 https://github.com/coreutils/coreutils/commit/425b8a2f534fe0...