uutils/coreutils · Security
mknod: Device nodes created mislabeled on SELinux, with broken cleanup (remove_dir on a node)
- GHSA ID
- GHSA-r9hw-mj3w-phcq
- CVE ID
- CVE-2026-35361
- Severity
- low
- Published
- Updated
- CVSS
- 3.4 · CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N
- CVSS v3
- 3.4 · CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N
Description
uutils calls mknod before setting the SELinux context (GNU uses setfscreatecon first, labeling atomically). If set_selinux_security_context fails, cleanup uses std::fs::remove_dir, which cannot remove device nodes or FIFOs, leaving the mislabeled node behind.
Impact: on SELinux-enforcing systems the node is created with the wrong context; the command reports failure but leaves a mislabeled device node that may bypass mandatory access control, and orphaned nodes can persist across reboots. Recommendation: use setfscreatecon before mknod, abort on failure, and use remove_file for cleanup.
Remediation: Acknowledged by Canonical.
Reported by Zellic in the uutils coreutils Program Security Assessment (prepared for Canonical, Jan 20 2026), audited commit 3a07ffc5a9bd4c283e75afa548ba1f1957bad242. Finding 3.58. Credit: Zellic.
CWEs
- CWE-281 · Improper Preservation of Permissions
- CWE-459 · Incomplete Cleanup
- CWE-732 · Incorrect Permission Assignment for Critical Resource
References
- https://github.com/uutils/coreutils/security/advisories/GHSA-r9hw-mj3w-phcq ↗
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-35361 ↗
- https://github.com/uutils/coreutils/pull/10582 ↗
- https://github.com/uutils/coreutils/commit/42b2ad83cdcf6e959ecb378c5040c60d9c64becf ↗
- https://github.com/uutils/coreutils/releases/tag/0.6.0 ↗
- https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-r9hw-mj3w-phcq ↗