Detections
Analytics

Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2021-27851

medium Nessus Plugin ID 257833

Synopsis

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed with a vulnerability that the vendor indicates will not be patched.

Description

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed that are impacted by a vulnerability without a vendor supplied patch available.

 - 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. (CVE-2021-27851)

Note that Nessus relies on the presence of the package as reported by the vendor.

Solution

There is no known solution at this time.

See Also

https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2021-27851

Plugin Details

Severity: Medium

ID: 257833

File Name: unpatched_CVE_2021_27851.nasl

Version: 1.1

Type: local

Agent: unix

Family: Misc.

Published: 8/27/2025

Updated: 8/27/2025

Supported Sensors: Agentless Assessment, Frictionless Assessment Agent, Frictionless Assessment AWS, Frictionless Assessment Azure, Nessus Agent, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Low

Score: 3.6

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Low

Base Score: 2.1

Temporal Score: 1.6

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

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2021-27851

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 5.5

Temporal Score: 4.8

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N

Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:U/RL:O/RC:C

Vulnerability Information

CPE: cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:22.04:-:lts, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:guix

Required KB Items: Host/cpu, Host/local_checks_enabled, global_settings/vendor_unpatched, Host/OS/identifier

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Vulnerability Publication Date: 3/18/2021

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2021-27851