CVE-2025-53819 | Nix's privilege dropping to build user broke for macOS

Nix is a package manager for Linux and other Unix systems. Builds with Nix 2.30.0 on macOS were executed with elevated privileges (root), instead of the build users. The fix was applied to Nix 2.30.1. No known workarounds are available.

Published: 2025-07-14 Last update: 2026-04-15 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Deferred，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2025-53819 is rated Low Risk (39.6/100): CVSS High severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.08%). Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.

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-2025-53819

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 2026-05-10 0.01% 0.08% +0.06%
2 2025-07-15 — 0.01% —

Full EPSS history (2 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2025-53819

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.9 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:H/A:L 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:C)
Breaking this can reach past the original component and bite other resources—bigger blast radius.
Confidentiality (C:L)
Some sensitive info could get out, but not a total data dump.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:L)
Might cause slowdowns, glitches, or partial disruption—not a full brick.
 2.0 5.3 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2025-53819

OS Trackers for CVE-2025-53819

vendor priority summary link
debian unimportant CVE-2025-53819 unimportant priority: Debian including 1 source packages (nix), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2025-53819
ubuntu medium CVE-2025-53819 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (nix), 4 status rows across 4 suites (jammy, noble, plucky, upstream): not-affected 4. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2025-53819

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2025-53819

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
No affected products in dataset.

References for CVE-2025-53819

cvelogic Threat Intelligence