CVE-2021-27851

MEDIUM

GNU Guix 0.11.0-1.2.0 - Local Privilege Escalation via Hardlink Attack on Build Directory

Title source: llm
STIX 2.1

Description

A security vulnerability that can lead to local privilege escalation has been found in ’guix-daemon’. It affects multi-user setups in which ’guix-daemon’ runs locally. The attack consists in having an unprivileged user spawn a build process, for instance with `guix build`, that makes its build directory world-writable. The user then creates a hardlink to a root-owned file such as /etc/shadow in that build directory. If the user passed the --keep-failed option and the build eventually fails, the daemon changes ownership of the whole build tree, including the hardlink, to the user. At that point, the user has write access to the target file. Versions after and including v0.11.0-3298-g2608e40988, and versions prior to v1.2.0-75109-g94f0312546 are vulnerable.

References (2)

Core 2
Core References
Issue Tracking, Mailing List, Patch, Vendor Advisory x_refsource_misc
https://bugs.gnu.org/47229

Scores

CVSS v3 5.5
EPSS 0.0004
EPSS Percentile 12.5%
Attack Vector LOCAL
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N

Details

CWE
CWE-264 CWE-59
Status published
Products (1)
gnu/guix 0.11.0 - 1.2.0
Published Apr 26, 2021
Tracked Since Feb 18, 2026