CVE-2021-20197

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Source
https://cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2021-20197
Import Source
https://storage.googleapis.com/osv-test-cve-osv-conversion/osv-output/CVE-2021-20197.json
JSON Data
https://api.test.osv.dev/v1/vulns/CVE-2021-20197
Downstream
Related
Published
2021-03-26T17:15:12.920Z
Modified
2026-03-13T00:47:09.029878Z
Severity
  • 6.3 (Medium) CVSS_V3 - CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N CVSS Calculator
Summary
[none]
Details

There is an open race window when writing output in the following utilities in GNU binutils version 2.35 and earlier:ar, objcopy, strip, ranlib. When these utilities are run as a privileged user (presumably as part of a script updating binaries across different users), an unprivileged user can trick these utilities into getting ownership of arbitrary files through a symlink.

References

Affected packages

Git / sourceware.org/git/binutils-gdb.git

Affected ranges

Type
GIT
Repo
https://sourceware.org/git/binutils-gdb.git
Events
Introduced
0 Unknown introduced commit / All previous commits are affected
Last affected
2cb5c79dad39dd438fb0f7372ac04cf5aa2a7db7
Introduced
0 Unknown introduced commit / All previous commits are affected
Last affected
1f1c02597cc199227226251a2ea51fe5f44b4d6d
Database specific 
{
    "versions": [
        {
            "introduced": "0"
        },
        {
            "last_affected": "2.35"
        },
        {
            "introduced": "0"
        },
        {
            "last_affected": "8.0"
        }
    ]
}

Affected versions

Other
binu_ss_19990502
binutils-2_35
gdb-4_18-branchpoint
gdb-9-branchpoint
gdb_5_2-branchpoint
gdb_5_3-branchpoint
gdb_6_0-branchpoint
gdb_6_1-branchpoint
gdb_6_2-branchpoint
gdb_6_3-branchpoint
gdb_6_4-branchpoint
gdb_6_5-branchpoint
gdb_6_6-branchpoint
gdb_6_7-branchpoint
gdb_6_8-branchpoint
gdb_7_0-branchpoint
gdb_7_1-branchpoint
gdb_7_2-branchpoint
gdb_7_3-branchpoint
gdb_7_4-branchpoint
gdb_7_5-branchpoint
gdb_7_6-branchpoint
readline_4_0
users/ARM/embedded-binutils-master-2016q4
users/ARM/embedded-binutils-master-2017q4
users/ARM/embedded-binutils-master-2018q4
users/ARM/embedded-gdb-master-2017q4
users/ARM/embedded-gdb-master-2018q4
gdb-7.*
gdb-7.10-branchpoint
gdb-7.11-branchpoint
gdb-7.12-branchpoint
gdb-7.7-branchpoint
gdb-7.8-branchpoint
gdb-7.9-branchpoint
gdb-8.*
gdb-8.0-branchpoint
gdb-8.0-release
gdb-8.1-branchpoint
gdb-8.2-branchpoint
gdb-8.3-branchpoint

Database specific

source 
"https://storage.googleapis.com/osv-test-cve-osv-conversion/osv-output/CVE-2021-20197.json"