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🛡️ CVE-2022-21658 on Ubuntu — rustc

⚪ Unknown ✅ No Known Exploit OSV
N/A
CVSS Score
0 Low4 Medium7 High9 Critical10

Description

Rust is a multi-paradigm, general-purpose programming language designed for performance and safety, especially safe concurrency. The Rust Security Response WG was notified that the std::fs::remove_dir_all standard library function is vulnerable a race condition enabling symlink following (CWE-363). An attacker could use this security issue to trick a privileged program into deleting files and directories the attacker couldn't otherwise access or delete. Rust 1.0.0 through Rust 1.58.0 is affected by this vulnerability with 1.58.1 containing a patch. Note that the following build targets don't have usable APIs to properly mitigate the attack, and are thus still vulnerable even with a patched toolchain: macOS before version 10.10 (Yosemite) and REDOX. We recommend everyone to update to Rust 1.58.1 as soon as possible, especially people developing programs expected to run in privileged contexts (including system daemons and setuid binaries), as those have the highest risk of being affected by this. Note that adding checks in your codebase before calling remove_dir_all will not mitigate the vulnerability, as they would also be vulnerable to race conditions like remove_dir_all itself. The existing mitigation is working as intended outside of race conditions.

Distribution advisory

This page covers CVE-2022-21658 as tracked by Ubuntu, for the package rustc. The fix is available in version 1.59.0+dfsg1~ubuntu1~llvm-1~ubuntu1~20.04.2; earlier versions remain affected.

How this vulnerability can be exploited

This issue can be reached with local access to the system, attack complexity is high, an attacker needs low-level privileges on the target. No user interaction is required. The scope is unchanged, so the impact stays within the vulnerable component. Rated impact: confidentiality none, integrity high, availability high.

CVSS metrics in full

The score comes from this vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H

  • Attack vector: Local — a local account, shell or session on the host is needed.
  • Attack complexity: High — the attacker first has to win a race, learn a secret or otherwise prepare the target.
  • Privileges required: Low — an ordinary user account is enough.
  • User interaction: None — nobody has to be tricked into anything.
  • Scope: Unchanged — the damage stays inside the vulnerable component.
  • Confidentiality impact: None.
  • Integrity impact: High — total loss, or loss the attacker controls.
  • Availability impact: High — total loss, or loss the attacker controls.

Weakness class

UBUNTU-CVE-2022-21658 is classified as CWE-363: Race Condition Enabling Link Following. The product checks the status of a file or directory before accessing it, which produces a race condition in which the file can be replaced with a link before the access is performed, causing the product to access the wrong file.

Affected software

UBUNTU-CVE-2022-21658 is recorded against 1 package.

  • rustc (fixed in 1.59.0+dfsg1~ubuntu1~llvm-1~ubuntu1~20.04.2)

Timeline and source

Published on 20 January 2022 and last revised on 22 April 2026. No public exploit is currently recorded for this entry. Record sourced from OSV.

References

ubuntu.com (Report)
github.com (Report)
groups.google.com (Report)
rustsec.org (Report)
blog.rust-lang.org (Report)
github.com (Report)
www.cve.org (Report)

Other advisories for this package

rustc has other advisories on record. If you are patching this one, these are worth checking on the same host:

Same weakness in other software

These advisories are the same class of weakness (CWE-363: Race Condition Enabling Link Following) in other software:

CVE-2022-21658 on other distributions

Each distribution ships its own build and its own fixed version. Pick the one you run:

Details

Severity Unknown
CVSS Score N/A
CVSS Vector CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H
CWE N/A
Public Exploit ✅ No
Source OSV
Published 2022-01-20
Updated 2026-08-20
Modified 2026-04-22
Fix URL N/A

Affected Packages

Software From version Fixed in
rustc — 1.59.0+dfsg1~ubuntu1~llvm-1~ubuntu1~20.04.2

Similar Threats

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