Vulnerability · Published Apr 22, 2026 · Assigned by canonical
CVE-2026-35349uutils coreutils Path-Based Safety Bypass with --preserve-root
Medium 6.7
In plain English
A medium-severity security flaw in coreutils from Uutils. There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.2% (higher than 8% of all known vulnerabilities). Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.
Official description
A vulnerability in the rm utility of uutils coreutils allows a bypass of the --preserve-root protection. The implementation uses a path-string check rather than comparing device and inode numbers to identify the root directory. An attacker or accidental user can bypass this safeguard by using a symbolic link that resolves to the root directory (e.g., /tmp/rootlink -> /), potentially leading to the unintended recursive deletion of the entire root filesystem.
Affected packages & fixed versions
| Ecosystem | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian:12 | rust-coreutils | no fix listed | DEBIAN-CVE-2026-35349 |
| Debian:13 | rust-coreutils | no fix listed | DEBIAN-CVE-2026-35349 |
| Debian:14 | rust-coreutils | 0.7.0-1 | DEBIAN-CVE-2026-35349 |
| Ubuntu:24.04:LTS | rust-coreutils | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-35349 |
| Ubuntu:25.10 | rust-coreutils | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-35349 |
Affected products (as reported)
Weakness: CWE-59 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H
References
- https://github.com/uutils/coreutils/pull/9706 issue-tracking, patch
- https://github.com/uutils/coreutils/releases/tag/0.7.0 vendor-advisory