CVE-2017-18018

Exp

In GNU Coreutils through 8.29, chown-core.c in chown and chgrp does not prevent replacement of a plain file with a symlink during use of the POSIX "-R -L" options, which allows local users to modify the ownership of arbitrary files by leveraging a race condition.

Published: 2018-01-04 Last update: 2025-06-09 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2017-18018 is rated Exploit Available (50/100): CVSS High severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.06%). 1 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). Public exploits are available—assess exposure, apply mitigations, and prioritize patching.

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

Public exploit references (Exploit-DB) for CVE-2017-18018

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
— nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2017-18018

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 2025-06-10 0.04% 0.06% +0.01%
2 2025-03-30 0.08% 0.04% -0.03%
3 2025-03-29 — 0.08% —

Full EPSS history (8 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2017-18018

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.1 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 1.8 5.2 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0
4.7 3.0 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
Attack complexity (AC:H)
Even with access, the exploit needs extra luck, timing, or a fussy environment to actually work.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 1.0 3.6 [email protected]
1.9 2.0 LOW
AV:L/AC:M/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:M)
Exploitation needs some favorable conditions, but not exceptional ones.
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.
 3.4 2.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2017-18018

OS Trackers for CVE-2017-18018

vendor priority summary link
alpine — CVE-2017-18018: 1 source package rows (coreutils); 10 state rows across 10 repos (3.10-main, 3.11-main, 3.12-main, 3.17-main, 3.18-main, 3.19-main, 3.20-main, 3.21-main, 3.22-main, edge-main); fixed 10, open 0. https://security.alpinelinux.org/vuln/CVE-2017-18018
debian unimportant CVE-2017-18018 unimportant priority: Debian including 1 source packages (coreutils), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): open 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2017-18018
redhat medium — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2017-18018
suse medium — https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2017-18018/
ubuntu low CVE-2017-18018 low priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (coreutils), 14 status rows across 14 suites (artful, bionic, cosmic, disco, eoan, focal, groovy, hirsute, impish, jammy, trusty, upstream, xenial, zesty): ignored 11, not-affected 3. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2017-18018

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2017-18018

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
gnu coreutils <= 8.29 cpe:2.3:a:gnu:coreutils:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2017-18018

URL Tags
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/coreutils/2017-12/msg00045.html Exploit Issue Tracking Third Party Advisory
cvelogic Threat Intelligence