Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HSummary
CVE-2026-35338 is a high-severity Path Traversal (CWE-22) vulnerability in Uutils Coreutils. Its CVSS base score is 7.3 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190); ranked at the 7th 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-3 (Access Enforcement) and SI-10 (Information Input Validation) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
Deeper analysis AI-assisted summary
Synthesised by an AI model from the NVD description and linked references — a reading aid, not an authoritative source.
CVE-2026-35338 is a vulnerability in the chmod utility within uutils coreutils, a Rust implementation of GNU coreutils. The flaw allows bypassing the --preserve-root safety mechanism, which is intended to prevent recursive operations on the root filesystem. Specifically, the implementation checks only if the target path is literally "/" without canonicalizing it, enabling path variants like /../ or symbolic links to circumvent this protection (CWE-22).
Local attackers or even accidental users with low privileges can exploit this vulnerability. Exploitation requires low complexity and user interaction, such as running a crafted chmod command like "chmod -R 000 /../". Successful attacks enable destructive recursive operations on the entire root filesystem, resulting in system-wide permission loss, high impacts to confidentiality, integrity, and availability, and potential complete system breakdown.
Mitigation is available via the patch in GitHub pull request https://github.com/uutils/coreutils/pull/10033, which has been incorporated into uutils coreutils release 0.6.0 at https://github.com/uutils/coreutils/releases/tag/0.6.0. Security practitioners should update affected installations to version 0.6.0 or later to address the issue.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2026-24963
Vulnerability Data
A vulnerability in the chmod utility of uutils coreutils allows users to bypass the --preserve-root safety mechanism. The implementation only validates if the target path is literally / and does not canonicalize the path. An attacker or accidental user can…
more
use path variants such as /../ or symbolic links to execute destructive recursive operations (e.g., chmod -R 000) on the entire root filesystem, leading to system-wide permission loss and potential complete system breakdown.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Control response
—
—
—
V5.3.2
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Enforces the intended directory access authorizations that path traversal would otherwise bypass.
Input validation directly neutralizes special path elements before pathname construction occurs.
Least privilege reduces the impact of any unauthorized file access obtained via traversal.
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.
Patching/maintenance can remediate known path-traversal flaws in deployed software (partial prevention of exploitability) but does nothing to stop the coding defect from being introduced in the first place.
PR.AA-05 defines and reviews access policies but does not address code-level pathname neutralization, so neither direction prevents CWE-22.
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.
Security testing in development catches path traversal via static/dynamic analysis.
Secure SDLC mandates input validation and path sanitization that directly prevent path traversal.
Application security requirements include rules for safe file handling and canonicalization.
Secure architecture principles require least-privilege file access and directory isolation.
Secure coding standards explicitly forbid unsafe path construction and mandate safe APIs.
Information access restriction limits which files an application may read or write.