Cyber Resilience

CVE-2024-52522

Published
15 November 2024
Modified
15 April 2026
CVSS Score v4 5.4
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:A/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:L/SI:L/SA:L/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
EPSS Score 0.0022 12th percentile
Risk Priority 35 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-2024-52522 is a medium-severity Link Following (CWE-59) vulnerability. Its CVSS base score is 5.4 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Path Interception (T1034); ranked at the 12th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to AC-16 (Security and Privacy Attributes) and AC-3 (Access Enforcement) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

A01:2025 Broken Access Control

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

Rclone is a command-line program to sync files and directories to and from different cloud storage providers. Insecure handling of symlinks with --links and --metadata in rclone while copying to local disk allows unprivileged users to indirectly modify ownership and…

more

permissions on symlink target files when a superuser or privileged process performs a copy. This vulnerability could enable privilege escalation and unauthorized access to critical system files, compromising system integrity, confidentiality, and availability. This vulnerability is fixed in 1.68.2.

CWE(s)
CWE-59CWE-61CWE-281

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1034 Path Interception Persistence
**This technique has been deprecated.
attack.mitre.org →
T1005 Data from Local System Collection
Adversaries may search local system sources, such as file systems, configuration files, local databases, virtual machine files, or process memory, to find files of interest and sensitive data prior to Exfiltration.
attack.mitre.org →
T1039 Data from Network Shared Drive Collection
Adversaries may search network shares on computers they have compromised to find files of interest.
attack.mitre.org →
T1080 Taint Shared Content Lateral Movement
attack.mitre.org →
T1547.009 Shortcut Modification Persistence
Adversaries may create or modify shortcuts that can execute a program during system boot or user login.
attack.mitre.org →
T1552 Unsecured Credentials Credential Access
Adversaries may search compromised systems to find and obtain insecurely stored credentials.
attack.mitre.org →
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2024-44211Shared CWE-281, CWE-59
CVE-2023-28642Shared CWE-281, CWE-59
CVE-2024-37649Shared CWE-281
CVE-2023-30735Shared CWE-281
CVE-2025-25871Shared CWE-281
CVE-2026-35385Shared CWE-281
CVE-2024-37575Shared CWE-281
CVE-2024-40859Shared CWE-281
CVE-2026-40767Shared CWE-281
CVE-2024-40672Shared CWE-281

Affected Assets

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)

—

Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

—

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)
  • 7 hardening rules · 4 OS baselines
Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V15.4.2
  • V5.2.5

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

AC-16 Security and Privacy Attributes good match

Associating and preserving security attributes (including permissions) with objects reduces the chance they are lost or weakened on copy/restore/share.

AC-3 Access Enforcement good match

Proper enforcement of access authorizations on the resolved target resource stops a link from reaching an unintended object.

AC-4 Information Flow Enforcement partial match

Information-flow enforcement on file operations must follow the resolved target rather than the link name, blocking unauthorized data movement via symlinks.

AC-6 Least Privilege partial match

Least-privilege limits the damage an attacker can cause after following an unintended link.

SI-10 Information Input Validation partial match

Validating file-name inputs can reject or canonicalize names that resolve to links before access occurs.

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.AA-05 mostly match
prevents

Enforcing least-privilege permission policies and reviews directly prevents incorrect permission propagation on copy/restore/share operations.

PR.PS-06 mostly match
prevents

Secure SDLC practices directly require code to validate paths and avoid unsafe link following.

ID.RA-01 partial match
prevents

Vulnerability identification can discover existing symlink issues but does not prevent or remediate them in code.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

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

A.8.29 Security testing in development and acceptance mostly match
finds

Security testing can detect link-following flaws before release.

A.5.15 Access control partial match
degrades

Access-control policy defines how permissions must be preserved when objects are copied or shared.

A.5.18 Access rights partial match
degrades

Access-rights provisioning and review processes directly address the risk of overly permissive copied objects.

A.8.2 Privileged access rights partial match
degrades

Privileged-access management includes rules for maintaining correct permissions on copied or restored data.

A.8.25 Secure development life cycle partial match
prevents

Secure SDLC practices can mandate link-resolution checks and canonicalization before file access.

A.8.26 Application security requirements partial match
prevents

Application security requirements can explicitly require safe handling of symbolic links and path traversal.

Hardening callouts derived

Configuration rules from DISA STIG baselines that bear on weaknesses of the type cited by this CVE. Each rule is shown with the relationship its mapping actually records, against the CWE it was authored against. Derived via CVE→CWE over `controls_xwalks` (authoritative rows only; rows rated `none` are excluded).

Oracle Linux 8 (1 rule)
  • V-248577 OL 8 must enable kernel parameters to enforce Discretionary Access Control (DAC) on symlinks. prevents CWE-61
Windows Server 2019 (1 rule)
  • V-205743 Windows Server 2019 organization created Active Directory Organizational Unit (OU) objects must have proper access control permissions. prevents CWE-281

References