uutils coreutils chmod False Success Exit Code in Recursive Mode
13Vexday Risk Score
No sign of exploitation. No public exploitation artifact known so far.
ssvc Trackcvss 5.5epss 0.1%
exploitation probability
0.1%top 96% of all CVEs
observed exploitation
nono source reports it
The recursive mode (-R) of the chmod utility in uutils coreutils incorrectly handles exit codes when processing multiple files. The final return value is determined solely by the success or failure of the last file processed. This allows the command to return an exit code of 0 (success) even if errors were encountered on previous files, such as 'Operation not permitted'. Scripts relying on these exit codes may proceed under a false sense of success while sensitive files remain with restrictive or incorrect permissions.
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
Affected products
Uutils · coreutils