CVE-2021-20197

MEDIUM
6.3
CVSS Score
Published: March 26, 2021 at 04:47 PM UTC
Updated: June 17, 2026 at 03:33 AM UTC
6 products affected across 4 vendorsEnterprise LinuxCloud BackupBinutils

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Severity
MEDIUM6.3
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.3%
SSVC
No known exploit

Description

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.

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

Remediation

No guide yet

No remediation guidance has been written for this CVE yet. What the record does show:

References (4)

x_refsource_MISCIssue TrackingPatchThird Party Advisory
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1913743
Vendor Advisoryx_refsource_GENTOOThird Party Advisory
https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202208-30
x_refsource_MISCIssue TrackingPatchThird Party Advisory
https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=26945

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCNo known exploitNot automatableTotal impact

SSVC signals action urgency (what to patch first), separate from CVSS which measures severity.

CVSS

6.3MEDIUMCISA-ADP
Attack Vector
LOCAL
Complexity
HIGH
Privileges
LOW
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
HIGH
Integrity
HIGH
Availability
NONE
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusMODIFIED
CWE
CWE-59

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