CVE-2021-20197

NameCVE-2021-20197
DescriptionThere 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.
SourceCVE (at NVD; CERT, LWN, oss-sec, fulldisc, Red Hat, Ubuntu, Gentoo, SUSE bugzilla/CVE, GitHub advisories/code/issues, web search, more)

Vulnerable and fixed packages

The table below lists information on source packages.

Source PackageReleaseVersionStatus
binutils (PTS)jessie, jessie (lts)2.25-5+deb8u2vulnerable
stretch (lts), stretch2.28-5+deb9u1vulnerable
buster, buster (lts)2.31.1-16+deb10u1vulnerable
bullseye2.35.2-2vulnerable
bookworm2.40-2fixed
trixie2.43.50.20241215-1fixed
sid2.43.50.20241221-1fixed

The information below is based on the following data on fixed versions.

PackageTypeReleaseFixed VersionUrgencyOriginDebian Bugs
binutilssourceexperimental2.35.50.20201209-1
binutilssource(unstable)2.37-3unimportant

Notes

https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=26945
https://sourceware.org/git/gitweb.cgi?p=binutils-gdb.git;h=014cc7f849e8209623fc99264814bce7b3b6faf2
https://sourceware.org/git/gitweb.cgi?p=binutils-gdb.git;h=1a1c3b4cc17687091cff5a368bd6f13742bcfdf8
https://sourceware.org/git/gitweb.cgi?p=binutils-gdb.git;h=365f5fb6d0f0da83817431a275e99e6f6babbe04
binutils not covered by security support

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