Cyber Resilience

CVE-2024-27297

Race Condition in Nixos Nix ≤ 2.3.18

Public PoCRace Condition
Published
11 March 2024
Modified
17 June 2026
Patch / advisory
View advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 6.3
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:L
EPSS Score 0.0059 46th percentile
Risk Priority 49 floored blend · peak EPSS

CVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.

Summary

CVE-2024-27297 is a medium-severity Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) Race Condition (CWE-367) vulnerability in Nixos Nix. Its CVSS base score is 6.3 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Path Interception (T1034); ranked at the 46th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to AC-25 (Reference Monitor) and AC-3 (Access Enforcement) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

Nix is a package manager for Linux and other Unix systems. A fixed-output derivations on Linux can send file descriptors to files in the Nix store to another program running on the host (or another fixed-output derivation) via Unix domain…

more

sockets in the abstract namespace. This allows to modify the output of the derivation, after Nix has registered the path as "valid" and immutable in the Nix database. In particular, this allows the output of fixed-output derivations to be modified from their expected content. This issue has been addressed in versions 2.3.18 2.18.2 2.19.4 and 2.20.5. Users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.

CWE(s)
CWE-367

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1034 Path Interception Persistence
**This technique has been deprecated.
attack.mitre.org →
T1548 Abuse Elevation Control Mechanism Privilege Escalation
Adversaries may circumvent mechanisms designed to control privilege elevation to gain higher-level permissions.
attack.mitre.org →
T1574 Hijack Execution Flow Stealth
Adversaries may execute their own malicious payloads by hijacking the way operating systems run programs.
attack.mitre.org →
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2024-45593Same product: Nixos Nix
CVE-2026-39860Same product: Nixos Nix
CVE-2026-47746Shared CWE-367
CVE-2026-71539Shared CWE-367
CVE-2026-52885Shared CWE-367
CVE-2026-65598Shared CWE-367
CVE-2024-35265Shared CWE-367
CVE-2023-43976Shared CWE-367
CVE-2023-27323Shared CWE-367
CVE-2026-53806Shared CWE-367

Affected Assets

nixos
nix
≤ 2.3.18 · 2.4 — 2.18.2 · 2.19.0 — 2.19.4

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)

—

Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

—

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)

—

Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V15.4.2
  • V17.2.6

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

AC-25 Reference Monitor good match

A reference monitor that is always invoked and analyzable structurally eliminates the non-atomic check-then-use pattern underlying TOCTOU.

AC-3 Access Enforcement partial match

Access enforcement that performs an atomic check-and-use decision directly stops the window in which a TOCTOU race can be exploited.

SC-39 Process Isolation partial match

Process isolation limits the blast radius of a successful TOCTOU exploitation but does not remove the race itself.

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

PR.PS-06 mostly match
prevents

Secure SDLC practices directly include coding standards and reviews that prevent TOCTOU race conditions.

References