uutils coreutils has an Untrusted Search Path
High severity
GitHub Reviewed
Published
Apr 22, 2026
to the GitHub Advisory Database
•
Updated Apr 30, 2026
Description
Published by the National Vulnerability Database
Apr 22, 2026
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database
Apr 22, 2026
Last updated
Apr 30, 2026
Reviewed
Apr 30, 2026
A vulnerability exists in the chroot utility of uutils coreutils when using the --userspec option. The utility resolves the user specification via getpwnam() after entering the chroot but before dropping root privileges. On glibc-based systems, this can trigger the Name Service Switch (NSS) to load shared libraries (e.g., libnss_*.so.2) from the new root directory. If the NEWROOT is writable by an attacker, they can inject a malicious NSS module to execute arbitrary code as root, facilitating a full container escape or privilege escalation.
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