CVE-2021-35938

Publication date 25 August 2022

Last updated 11 July 2025

Ubuntu priority

Cvss 3 Severity Score

Description

A symbolic link issue was found in rpm. It occurs when rpm sets the desired permissions and credentials after installing a file. A local unprivileged user could use this flaw to exchange the original file with a symbolic link to a security-critical file and escalate their privileges on the system. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to data confidentiality and integrity as well as system availability.

Read the notes from the security team

Status

Show unmaintained releases

Package	Ubuntu Release	Status
rpm	25.10 questing	Needs evaluation
	25.04 plucky	Needs evaluation
	24.10 oracular	Ignored end of life, was needs-triage
	24.04 LTS noble	Needs evaluation
	23.10 mantic	Ignored end of life, was needs-triage
	23.04 lunar	Ignored end of life, was needs-triage
	22.10 kinetic	Ignored end of life, was needs-triage
	22.04 LTS jammy	Needs evaluation
	21.10 impish	Ignored end of life
	21.04 hirsute	Ignored end of life
	20.10 groovy	Ignored end of life
	20.04 LTS focal	Needs evaluation
	18.04 LTS bionic	Needs evaluation
	16.04 LTS xenial	Needs evaluation
	14.04 LTS trusty	Needs evaluation

Notes

seth-arnold

Only debugedit and librpmio9 binary packages are in main, and triaged with view to how they are used in the build process as described in https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/rpm/+bug/1913871

Severity score breakdown

Parameter	Value
Base score	6.7 · Medium
Attack vector	Local
Attack complexity	Low
Privileges required	High
User interaction	None
Scope	Unchanged
Confidentiality	High
Integrity impact	High
Availability impact	High
Vector	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H