Duplicate Advisory: uutils coreutils allows users to bypass the --preserve-root safety mechanism

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Description

Duplicate Advisory

This advisory has been withdrawn because it is a duplicate of GHSA-4c7q-4928-8445. This link is maintained to preserve external references.

Original Description

A vulnerability in the chmod utility of uutils coreutils allows users to bypass the --preserve-root safety mechanism. The implementation only validates if the target path is literally / and does not canonicalize the path. An attacker or accidental user can use path variants such as /../ or symbolic links to execute destructive recursive operations (e.g., chmod -R 000) on the entire root filesystem, leading to system-wide permission loss and potential complete system breakdown.

Basic information

Type
reviewed
Severity
high
Advisory on GitHub
Open advisory ↗
Repository advisory
—
Source code
Browse source ↗
Published (advisory)
2026-04-22 18:31:44 UTC
Updated
2026-07-06 17:41:39 UTC
GitHub reviewed
2026-04-29 22:36:35 UTC
NVD published
2026-04-22
Withdrawn
2026-07-06 17:41:39 UTC

CVSS Scores

Base score Version Severity Vector
7.3 3.1 —
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H 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:R)
A real person has to do something—click, install, enable—otherwise it doesn’t land.
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:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.

Identifiers

Type Value
GHSA GHSA-9gqx-53gp-c8g3 ↗

CWEs

CWE id Name
CWE-22 Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')

Affected packages (1)

Vulnerable version ranges and first patched releases as published by GitHub.

Ecosystem Package Vulnerable range First patched Vulnerable functions
rust coreutils < 0.6.0 0.6.0 —

References

cvelogic Threat Intelligence