GNU gzip contains a vulnerability in the gzexe utility related to insecure temporary file handling. When the mktemp utility is not available in the user’s PATH, gzexe falls back to constructing a temporary file path based solely on the process ID (PID). This predictable filename is created without exclusive access or existence checks.
A local attacker can pre‑create the predicted temporary file path as a symbolic link pointing to an arbitrary file writable by the victim. When gzexe runs, it follows the symlink and overwrites the target file, resulting in a time‑of‑check to time‑of‑use (TOCTOU) condition that allows arbitrary file overwrite.
This issue has been fixed in the commit 4e6f8b24ab823146ab8776f0b7fe486ab34d4269
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Mon, 29 Jun 2026 14:30:00 +0000
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Mon, 29 Jun 2026 12:00:00 +0000
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| Description | GNU gzip contains a vulnerability in the gzexe utility related to insecure temporary file handling. When the mktemp utility is not available in the user’s PATH, gzexe falls back to constructing a temporary file path based solely on the process ID (PID). This predictable filename is created without exclusive access or existence checks. A local attacker can pre‑create the predicted temporary file path as a symbolic link pointing to an arbitrary file writable by the victim. When gzexe runs, it follows the symlink and overwrites the target file, resulting in a time‑of‑check to time‑of‑use (TOCTOU) condition that allows arbitrary file overwrite. This issue has been fixed in the commit 4e6f8b24ab823146ab8776f0b7fe486ab34d4269 | |
| Title | Predictable Temporary File in GNU gzip | |
| Weaknesses | CWE-377 | |
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cvssV4_0
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Status: PUBLISHED
Assigner: CERT-PL
Published:
Updated: 2026-06-29T13:31:46.581Z
Reserved: 2026-04-23T08:06:09.511Z
Link: CVE-2026-41991
Updated: 2026-06-29T13:31:40.967Z
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OpenCVE Enrichment
Updated: 2026-06-29T14:00:05Z