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CVE-2026-41991

Predictable Temporary File in GNU gzip PUBLISHED

Description (CNA)

GNU gzip contains a vulnerability in the gzexe utility related to insecure temporary file handling. When the mktemp utility is not available in the user’s PATH, gzexe falls back to constructing a temporary file path based solely on the process ID (PID). This predictable filename is created without exclusive access or existence checks. A local attacker can pre‑create the predicted temporary file path as a symbolic link pointing to an arbitrary file writable by the victim. When gzexe runs, it follows the symlink and overwrites the target file, resulting in a time‑of‑check to time‑of‑use (TOCTOU) condition that allows arbitrary file overwrite. This issue has been fixed in the commit 4e6f8b24ab823146ab8776f0b7fe486ab34d4269

Affected (CNA)

Vendor / productVersions
GNU / gzipaffected 0 through 1.14

CWE

CWE-377

References

ADP enrichment

CISA-ADP

No English description supplied.

No references supplied.