CVE-2021-20197

MEDIUM

GNU binutils < 2.35 - Race Condition in ar, objcopy, strip, ranlib

Title source: llm
STIX 2.1

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.

References (4)

Core 4
Core References
Issue Tracking, Patch, Third Party Advisory x_refsource_misc
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1913743
Issue Tracking, Patch, Third Party Advisory x_refsource_misc
https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=26945
Third Party Advisory x_refsource_confirm
https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20210528-0009/
Third Party Advisory vendor-advisory x_refsource_gentoo
https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202208-30

Scores

CVSS v3 6.3
EPSS 0.0011
EPSS Percentile 29.8%
Attack Vector LOCAL
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N

CISA SSVC

Vulnrichment
Exploitation none
Automatable no
Technical Impact total

Details

CWE
CWE-362 CWE-59
Status published
Products (6)
broadcom/brocade_fabric_operating_system_firmware
gnu/binutils < 2.35
netapp/cloud_backup
netapp/ontap_select_deploy_administration_utility
netapp/solidfire_\&_hci_management_node
redhat/enterprise_linux 8.0
Published Mar 26, 2021
Tracked Since Feb 18, 2026