CWE-61
UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following
CompoundIncompleteLikelihood: High
Description
The product, when opening a file or directory, does not sufficiently account for when the file is a symbolic link that resolves to a target outside of the intended control sphere. This could allow an attacker to cause the product to operate on unauthorized files.
A product that allows UNIX symbolic links (symlink) as part of paths whether in internal code or through user input can allow an attacker to spoof the symbolic link and traverse the file system to unintended locations or access arbitrary files. The symbolic link can permit an attacker to read/write/corrupt a file that they originally did not have permissions to access.
Hierarchy (View 1000)
Parents
Children
none
Related attack patterns (CAPEC)
CAPEC-27
CVEs mapped to this weakness (54)
page 3 of 3| CVE | Sev | Risk | CVSS | EPSS | KEV | Published | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CVE-2026-43570 | Med | 0.35 | 6.5 | 0.00 | May 5, 2026 | OpenClaw versions 2026.3.22 before 2026.4.5 contain a symlink traversal vulnerability in remote marketplace repository path handling that allows attackers to escape the expected repository root. Attackers can exploit this by providing crafted symlink paths to access files outside the intended repository directory. | |
| CVE-2025-3048 | Med | 0.35 | 6.5 | 0.00 | Mar 31, 2025 | After completing a build with AWS Serverless Application Model Command Line Interface (SAM CLI) which include symlinks, the content of those symlinks are copied to the cache of the local workspace as regular files or directories. As a result, a user who does not have access to those symlinks outside of the Docker container would now have access via the local workspace. Users should upgrade to version 1.134.0 and ensure any forked or derivative code is patched to incorporate the new fixes. After upgrading, users must re-build their applications using the sam build --use-container to update the symlinks. | |
| CVE-2025-3047 | Med | 0.35 | 6.5 | 0.00 | Mar 31, 2025 | When running the AWS Serverless Application Model Command Line Interface (SAM CLI) build process with Docker and symlinks are included in the build files, the container environment allows a user to access privileged files on the host by leveraging the elevated permissions granted to the tool. A user could leverage the elevated permissions to access restricted files via symlinks and copy them to a more permissive location on the container. Users should upgrade to v1.133.0 or newer and ensure any forked or derivative code is patched to incorporate the new fixes. | |
| CVE-2026-24047 | Med | 0.34 | 6.3 | 0.00 | Jan 21, 2026 | Backstage is an open framework for building developer portals, and @backstage/cli-common provides config loading functionality used by the backend and command line interface of Backstage. Prior to version 0.1.17, the `resolveSafeChildPath` utility function in `@backstage/backend-plugin-api`, which is used to prevent path traversal attacks, failed to properly validate symlink chains and dangling symlinks. An attacker could bypass the path validation via symlink chains (creating `link1 → link2 → /outside` where intermediate symlinks eventually resolve outside the allowed directory) and dangling symlinks (creating symlinks pointing to non-existent paths outside the base directory, which would later be created during file operations). This function is used by Scaffolder actions and other backend components to ensure file operations stay within designated directories. This vulnerability is fixed in `@backstage/backend-plugin-api` version 0.1.17. Users should upgrade to this version or later. Some workarounds are available. Run Backstage in a containerized environment with limited filesystem access and/or restrict template creation to trusted users. | |
| CVE-2025-59825 | Med | 0.33 | — | 0.00 | Sep 23, 2025 | astral-tokio-tar is a tar archive reading/writing library for async Rust. In versions 0.5.3 and earlier of astral-tokio-tar, tar archives may extract outside of their intended destination directory when using the Entry::unpack_in_raw API. Additionally, the Entry::allow_external_symlinks control (which defaults to true) could be bypassed via a pair of symlinks that individually point within the destination but combine to point outside of it. These behaviors could be used individually or combined to bypass the intended security control of limiting extraction to the given directory. This in turn would allow an attacker with a malicious tar archive to perform an arbitrary file write and potentially pivot into code execution. This issue has been patched in version 0.5.4. There is no workaround other than upgrading. | |
| CVE-2026-7397 | Med | 0.29 | 4.4 | 0.00 | Apr 29, 2026 | A security flaw has been discovered in NousResearch hermes-agent 0.8.0. This affects the function _check_sensitive_path of the file tools/file_tools.py. The manipulation results in symlink following. Attacking locally is a requirement. The exploit has been released to the public and may be used for attacks. Upgrading to version 0.9.0 is able to mitigate this issue. The patch is identified as 311dac197145e19e07df68feba2cd55d896a3cd1. Upgrading the affected component is recommended. | |
| CVE-2025-11489 | Med | 0.29 | 4.5 | 0.00 | Oct 8, 2025 | A security vulnerability has been detected in wonderwhy-er DesktopCommanderMCP up to 0.2.13. This vulnerability affects the function isPathAllowed of the file src/tools/filesystem.ts. The manipulation leads to symlink following. The attack can only be performed from a local environment. The attack's complexity is rated as high. It is stated that the exploitability is difficult. The exploit has been disclosed publicly and may be used. The vendor explains: "Our restriction features are designed as guardrails for LLMs to help them stay closer to what users want, rather than hardened security boundaries. (...) For users where security is a top priority, we continue to recommend using Desktop Commander with Docker, which provides actual isolation. (...) We'll keep this issue open for future consideration if we receive more user demand for improved restrictions." This vulnerability only affects products that are no longer supported by the maintainer. | |
| CVE-2025-62724 | Med | 0.28 | 4.3 | 0.00 | Nov 20, 2025 | Open OnDemand is an open-source HPC portal. Prior to versions 4.0.8 and 3.1.16, users can craft a "Time of Check to Time of Use" (TOCTOU) attack when downloading zip files to access files outside of the OOD_ALLOWLIST. This vulnerability impacts sites that use the file browser allowlists in all current versions of OOD. However, files accessed are still protected by the UNIX permissions. Open OnDemand versions 4.0.8 and 3.1.16 have been patched for this vulnerability. | |
| CVE-2024-52522 | Med | 0.28 | — | 0.00 | Nov 15, 2024 | Rclone is a command-line program to sync files and directories to and from different cloud storage providers. Insecure handling of symlinks with --links and --metadata in rclone while copying to local disk allows unprivileged users to indirectly modify ownership and permissions on symlink target files when a superuser or privileged process performs a copy. This vulnerability could enable privilege escalation and unauthorized access to critical system files, compromising system integrity, confidentiality, and availability. This vulnerability is fixed in 1.68.2. | |
| CVE-2026-35372 | Med | 0.26 | 5.0 | 0.00 | Apr 22, 2026 | A logic error in the ln utility of uutils coreutils allows the utility to dereference a symbolic link target even when the --no-dereference (or -n) flag is explicitly provided. The implementation previously only honored the "no-dereference" intent if the --force (overwrite) mode was also enabled. This flaw causes ln to follow a symbolic link that points to a directory and create new links inside that target directory instead of treating the symbolic link itself as the destination. In environments where a privileged user or system script uses ln -n to update a symlink, a local attacker could manipulate existing symbolic links to redirect file creation into sensitive directories, potentially leading to unauthorized file creation or system misconfiguration. | |
| CVE-2026-34446 | Med | 0.24 | 4.7 | 0.00 | Apr 1, 2026 | Open Neural Network Exchange (ONNX) is an open standard for machine learning interoperability. Prior to version 1.21.0, there is an issue in onnx.load, the code checks for symlinks to prevent path traversal, but completely misses hardlinks because a hardlink looks exactly like a regular file on the filesystem. This issue has been patched in version 1.21.0. | |
| CVE-2025-64750 | Med | 0.22 | 4.5 | 0.00 | Dec 2, 2025 | SingularityCE and SingularityPRO are open source container platforms. Prior to SingularityCE 4.3.5 and SingularityPRO 4.1.11 and 4.3.5, if a user relies on LSM restrictions to prevent malicious operations then, under certain circumstances, an attacker can redirect the LSM label write operation so that it is ineffective. The attacker must cause the user to run a malicious container image that redirects the mount of /proc to the destination of a shared mount, either known to be configured on the target system, or that will be specified by the user when running the container. The attacker must also control the content of the shared mount, for example through another malicious container which also binds it, or as a user with relevant permissions on the host system it is bound from. This vulnerability is fixed in SingularityCE 4.3.5 and SingularityPRO 4.1.11 and 4.3.5. | |
| CVE-2024-34015 | Low | 0.21 | 3.3 | 0.00 | Nov 11, 2024 | Sensitive information disclosure during file browsing due to improper symbolic link handling. The following products are affected: Acronis Backup plugin for cPanel & WHM (Linux) before build 1.8.3.818, Acronis Backup plugin for cPanel & WHM (Linux) before build 1.9.1.892. | |
| CVE-2026-40354 | Low | 0.19 | 2.9 | 0.00 | Apr 11, 2026 | Flatpak xdg-desktop-portal before 1.20.4 and 1.21.x before 1.21.1 allows any Flatpak app to trash any file in the host context via a symlink attack on g_file_trash. |