CVE-2005-2991

ncompress 4.2.4 and earlier allows local users to overwrite arbitrary files via a symlink attack on temporary files using (1) zdiff or (2) zcmp, a different vulnerability than CVE-2004-0970.

Published: 2005-09-20 Last update: 2026-04-16 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2005-2991 is rated Low Risk (16.5/100): CVSS Low severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.09%). Low composite risk—no urgent action required; patch on your normal maintenance cycle and revisit priority if CVSS or EPSS increases.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2005-2991

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2025-03-30 0.17% 0.09% -0.07%
2 2025-03-29 0.09% 0.17% +0.07%
3 2025-03-17 — 0.09% —

Full EPSS history (5 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2005-2991

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
2.1 2.0 LOW
AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:N Click to expand
Access vector (AV:L)
Requires local access to the target system.
Access complexity (AC:L)
Exploitation conditions are straightforward and predictable.
Authentication (AU:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:N)
No confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:P)
Partial integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:N)
No availability impact.
 3.9 2.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2005-2991

OS Trackers for CVE-2005-2991

vendor priority summary link
debian unimportant CVE-2005-2991 unimportant priority: Debian including 1 source packages (ncompress), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2005-2991
redhat low — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2005-2991
ubuntu medium CVE-2005-2991 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (ncompress), 4 status rows across 4 suites (dapper, edgy, feisty, upstream): not-affected 3, needs-triage 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2005-2991

Vendor comments (NVD) for CVE-2005-2991

  • Red Hat (2006-08-30T00:00:00)

    Not vulnerable. This issue did not affect the ncompress packages as distributed with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1, 3, or 4.

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2005-2991

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
ncompress ncompress <= 4.2.4_r1 cpe:2.3:a:ncompress:ncompress:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2005-2991

cvelogic Threat Intelligence