UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following
CWE-61
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.
We track 86 vulnerabilities of this type. 100% are rated high or critical, and the average CVSS score is 8.1. 1 has been exploited in real attacks.
How this weakness is prevented
- Implementation: Symbolic link attacks often occur when a program creates a tmp directory that stores files/links. Access to the directory should be restricted to the program as to prevent attackers from manipulating the files.
- Architecture and Design: Follow the principle of least privilege when assigning access rights to entities in a software system. Denying access to a file can prevent an attacker from replacing that file with a link to a sensitive file. Ensure good compartmentalization in the system to provide protected areas that can be trusted.
Latest UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following vulnerabilities
- 8.2 High severity
kata-containers: UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following
Kata Containers is an open source project focusing on a standard implementation of lightweight Virtual Machines (VMs) that perform like containers. From v3.4.0 to v3.28.0, an oversight in the CopyFile policy (and perhaps the CopyFile handler) allows untrusted
- 10.0 Critical severity
claude-code: Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory
Claude Code is an agentic coding tool. Prior to version 2.1.64, Claude Code's sandbox did not prevent sandboxed processes from creating symlinks pointing to locations outside the workspace. When Claude Code subsequently wrote to a path within such a symlink, i
- 7.8 High severity
OpenClaw: UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following
OpenClaw before 2026.3.24 contains a symlink traversal vulnerability in agents.create and agents.update handlers that use fs.appendFile on IDENTITY.md without symlink containment checks. Attackers with workspace access can plant symlinks to append attacker-con
- 7.3 High severity
Junos OS: UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following
A UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following vulnerability in the CLI of Juniper Networks Junos OS allows a local, authenticated attacker with low privileges to escalate their privileges to root which will lead to a complete compromise of the system. When after a
- 8.4 High severity
nix: UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following
Nix is a package manager for Linux and other Unix systems. A bug in the fix for CVE-2024-27297 allowed for arbitrary overwrites of files writable by the Nix process orchestrating the builds (typically the Nix daemon running as root in multi-user installations)
- 7.5 High severity
liquidjs: UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following
LiquidJS is a Shopify / GitHub Pages compatible template engine in pure JavaScript. Prior to 10.25.3, for {% include %}, {% render %}, and {% layout %}, LiquidJS checks whether the candidate path is inside the configured partials or layouts roots before readin
- 10.0 Critical severity
flatpak: UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following
Flatpak is a Linux application sandboxing and distribution framework. Prior to 1.16.4, the Flatpak portal accepts paths in the sandbox-expose options which can be app-controlled symlinks pointing at arbitrary paths. Flatpak run mounts the resolved host path in
- 7.5 High severity
onnx: Relative Path Traversal
Open Neural Network Exchange (ONNX) is an open standard for machine learning interoperability. Prior to version 1.21.0, a path traversal vulnerability via symlink allows to read arbitrary files outside model or user-provided directory. This issue has been patc
- 7.3 High severity
AppSync: UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following
Dell AppSync, version(s) 4.6.0, contain(s) an UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following vulnerability. A low privileged attacker with local access could potentially exploit this vulnerability, leading to Information tampering.
- 7.8 High severity
incus: UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following
Incus is a system container and virtual machine manager. Incus provides an API to retrieve VM screenshots. That API relies on the use of a temporary file for QEMU to write the screenshot to which is then picked up and sent to the user prior to deletion. As ver
- 7.8 High severity
FortiClientLinux: UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following
A UNIX symbolic link (Symlink) following vulnerability in Fortinet FortiClientLinux 7.4.0 through 7.4.4, FortiClientLinux 7.2.2 through 7.2.12 may allow a local and unprivileged user to escalate their privileges to root.
- 8.8 High severity
zed: UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following
Zed, a code editor, has an extension installer allows tar/gzip downloads. Prior to version 0.224.4, the tar extractor (`async_tar::Archive::unpack`) creates symlinks from the archive without validation, and the path guard (`writeable_path_from_extension`) only
- 7.5 High severity
claude-code: UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following
Claude Code is an agentic coding tool. Prior to version 2.1.7, Claude Code failed to strictly enforce deny rules configured in settings.json when accessing files through symbolic links. If a user explicitly denied Claude Code access to a file (such as /etc/pas
- 7.1 High severity
copier: UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following
Copier is a library and CLI app for rendering project templates. Prior to version 9.11.2, Copier suggests that it's safe to generate a project from a safe template, i.e. one that doesn't use unsafe features like custom Jinja extensions which would require pass
- 9.5 Critical severity
Forgejo: UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following
Forgejo before 13.0.2 allows attackers to write to unintended files, and possibly obtain server shell access, because of mishandling of out-of-repository symlink destinations for template repositories. This is also fixed for 11 LTS in 11.0.7 and later.
- 8.4 High severity
Resiliency Extension: UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following
NVIDIA Resiliency Extension for Linux contains a vulnerability in log aggregation, where an attacker could cause predictable log-file names. A successful exploit of this vulnerability may lead to escalation of privileges, code execution, denial of service, inf
- 8.6 High severity
static-web-server: Improper Link Resolution Before File Access
Static Web Server (SWS) is a production-ready web server suitable for static web files or assets. Versions 2.40.0 and below contain symbolic links (symlinks) which can be used to access files or directories outside the intended web root folder. SWS generally d
- 7.8 High severity
Plesk: UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following
WebPros Plesk before 18.0.73.5 and 18.0.74 before 18.0.74.2 on Linux allows remote authenticated users to execute arbitrary code as root via domain creation. The attacker needs "Create and manage sites" with "Domains management" and "Subdomains management."
- 7.5 High severity
runc: UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following
runc is a CLI tool for spawning and running containers according to the OCI specification. In versions 1.2.7, 1.3.2 and 1.4.0-rc.2, an attacker can trick runc into misdirecting writes to /proc to other procfs files through the use of a racing container with sh
- 7.5 High severity
runc: UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following
runc is a CLI tool for spawning and running containers according to the OCI specification. Versions 1.0.0-rc3 through 1.2.7, 1.3.0-rc.1 through 1.3.2, and 1.4.0-rc.1 through 1.4.0-rc.2, due to insufficient checks when bind-mounting `/dev/pts/$n` to `/dev/conso
- 7.8 High severity
runc: UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following
runc is a CLI tool for spawning and running containers according to the OCI specification. In versions 1.2.7 and below, 1.3.0-rc.1 through 1.3.1, 1.4.0-rc.1 and 1.4.0-rc.2 files, runc would not perform sufficient verification that the source of the bind-mount
- 10.0 Critical severity
youki: UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following
Youki is a container runtime written in Rust. In versions 0.5.6 and below, youki’s apparmor handling performs insufficiently strict write-target validation, and when combined with path substitution during pathname resolution, can allow writes to unintended pro
- 10.0 Critical severity
youki: UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following
Youki is a container runtime written in Rust. In versions 0.5.6 and below, the initial validation of the source /dev/null is insufficient, allowing container escape when youki utilizes bind mounting the container's /dev/null as a file mask. This issue is fixed
- 7.1 High severity
SupportAssist for Home PCs: UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following
SupportAssist for Home PCs versions 4.8.2 and prior and SupportAssist for Business PCs versions 4.5.3 and prior, contain an UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) following vulnerability. A low privileged attacker with local access to the system could potentially exploi
- 7.0 High severity
DesktopCommanderMCP: Improper Link Resolution Before File Access
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 performe
- 8.7 High severity
tar-fs: Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory
tar-fs provides filesystem bindings for tar-stream. Versions prior to 3.1.1, 2.1.3, and 1.16.5 are vulnerable to symlink validation bypass if the destination directory is predictable with a specific tarball. This issue has been patched in version 3.1.1, 2.1.4,
- 8.5 High severity
Tumbleweed: UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following
A UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following vulnerability in the packaging of openSUSE Tumbleweed traefik2 allows the traefik user to escalate to root. This issue affects Tumbleweed: from ? before 2.11.29.
- 8.7 High severity
daemon: UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following
Airlink's Daemon interfaces with Docker and the Panel to provide secure access for controlling instances via the Panel. In version 1.0.0, an attacker with access to the affected container can create symbolic links inside the mounted directory (/app/data). Beca
- 7.0 High severity
youki: UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following
Youki is a container runtime written in Rust. Prior to version 0.5.5, if /proc and /sys in the rootfs are symbolic links, they can potentially be exploited to gain access to the host root filesystem. This issue has been patched in version 0.5.5.
- 7.8 High severity
Encryption Admin Utilities: Improper Link Resolution Before File Access
Dell Encryption Admin Utilities versions prior to 11.10.2 contain an Improper Link Resolution vulnerability. A local malicious user could potentially exploit this vulnerability, leading to privilege escalation.
- 9.8 Critical severity
openSUSE Tumbleweed: UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following
A UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following vulnerability in openSUSE Tumbleweed cyrus-imapd allows escalation from cyrus to root.This issue affects openSUSE Tumbleweed cyrus-imapd before 3.8.4-2.1.
- 7.3 High severity
zip2: Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory
`zip` is a zip library for rust which supports reading and writing of simple ZIP files. In the archive extraction routine of affected versions of the `zip` crate starting with version 1.3.0 and prior to version 2.3.0, symbolic links earlier in the archive are
- 8.8 High severity
Zoom Apps for macOS: Improper Link Resolution Before File Access
Symlink following in the installer for some Zoom apps for macOS before version 6.1.5 may allow an authenticated user to conduct an escalation of privilege via network access.
- 7.8 High severity
Dell SupportAssist OS Recovery: Improper Link Resolution Before File Access
Dell SupportAssist OS Recovery versions prior to 5.5.13.1 contain a symbolic link attack vulnerability. A low-privileged attacker with local access could potentially exploit this vulnerability, leading to arbitrary file deletion and Elevation of Privileges.
- 7.7 High severity
dojo: UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following
pwn.college is an education platform to learn about, and practice, core cybersecurity concepts in a hands-on fashion. Incorrect symlink checks on user specified dojos allows for users (admin not required) to perform an LFI from the CTFd container. When a user
- 8.8 High severity
SupportAssist for Home PCs: Improper Link Resolution Before File Access
Dell SupportAssist for Home PCs versions 4.6.1 and prior and Dell SupportAssist for Business PCs versions 4.5.0 and prior, contain a symbolic link (symlink) attack vulnerability in the software remediation component. A low-privileged authenticated user could p
- 8.7 High severity
gogs: Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory
Gogs is an open source self-hosted Git service. A malicious user is able to commit and edit a crafted symlink file to a repository to gain SSH access to the server. The vulnerability is fixed in 0.13.1.
- 7.8 High severity
Inventory Collector Client: Improper Link Resolution Before File Access
Dell Inventory Collector Client, versions prior to 12.7.0, contains an Improper Link Resolution Before File Access vulnerability. A low-privilege attacker with local access may exploit this vulnerability, potentially resulting in Elevation of Privileges and un
- 7.5 High severity
extract: Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory
Extract is aA Go library to extract archives in zip, tar.gz or tar.bz2 formats. A maliciously crafted archive may allow an attacker to create a symlink outside the extraction target directory. This vulnerability is fixed in 4.0.0. If you're using the Extractor
- 10.0 Critical severity
judge0: Improper Link Resolution Before File Access
Judge0 is an open-source online code execution system. The application uses the UNIX chown command on an untrusted file within the sandbox. An attacker can abuse this by creating a symbolic link (symlink) to a file outside the sandbox, allowing the attacker to