CVE-2026-35338

high

Description

A vulnerability in the chmod utility of uutils coreutils allows users to bypass the --preserve-root safety mechanism. The implementation only validates if the target path is literally / and does not canonicalize the path. An attacker or accidental user can use path variants such as /../ or symbolic links to execute destructive recursive operations (e.g., chmod -R 000) on the entire root filesystem, leading to system-wide permission loss and potential complete system breakdown.

References

https://github.com/uutils/coreutils/releases/tag/0.6.0

https://github.com/uutils/coreutils/pull/10033

Details

Source: Mitre, NVD

Published: 2026-04-22

Updated: 2026-04-22

Risk Information

CVSS v2

Base Score: 6.8

Vector: CVSS2#AV:L/AC:L/Au:S/C:C/I:C/A:C

Severity: Medium

CVSS v3

Base Score: 7.3

Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Severity: High