CVE-2021-35937
rpm: TOCTOU race in checks for unsafe symlinks
Severity
ModerateRed Hat Product Security
CVSS 3.1
Review impact separately from score.
Published · June 30, 2021
Updated · June 27, 2026
Description
A race condition vulnerability was found in rpm. A local unprivileged user could use this flaw to bypass the checks that were introduced in response to CVE-2017-7500 and CVE-2017-7501, potentially gaining root privileges. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to data confidentiality and integrity as well as system availability.
Statement
System and service accounts may have the required permissions to exploit this flaw. Conversely, regular user accounts should not be allowed to manipulate RPM artifacts during installation, thus reducing the attack surface and hence the impact of this flaw considerably.
CVSS score applicability
The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.
Mitigation
Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base or stability.
CVSS / CWE
CVSS 3.1 · 6.3CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:H/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CWE-367 · Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) Race Condition