uutils coreutils rm Safeguard Bypass via Improper Path Normalization

CISA KEV is observed exploitation evidence. FIRST EPSS is a dated prediction of exploitation in the next 30 days. Missing scores are unknown. This collector requests predictions only for explicit CVE aliases in the public NuGet archive; Microsoft release views retain their existing prediction scope.

No collected risk observation for these identifiers. This does not establish absence of exploitation or a zero probability.

A vulnerability in the rm utility of uutils coreutils allows the bypass of safeguard mechanisms intended to protect the current directory. While the utility correctly refuses to delete . or .., it fails to recognize equivalent paths with trailing slashes, such as ./ or .///. An accidental or malicious execution of rm -rf ./ results in the silent recursive deletion of all contents within the current directory. The command further obscures the data loss by reporting a misleading 'Invalid input' error, which may cause users to miss the critical window for data recovery.

Source published

22 Apr 2026 16:08:36 UTC

Source modified

22 Apr 2026 17:24:11 UTC

Observed here

23 Oct 2026 15:48:27 UTC

Source terms

CVE Program Terms of Use

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CVSS 3.1 · 5.6 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:L

A vulnerability in the rm utility of uutils coreutils allows the bypass of safeguard mechanisms intended to protect the current directory. While the utility correctly refuses to delete . or .., it fails to recognize equivalent paths with trailing slashes, such as ./ or .///. An accidental or malicious execution of rm -rf ./ results in the silent recursive deletion of all contents within the current directory. The command further obscures the data loss by reporting a misleading 'Invalid input' error, which may cause users to miss the critical window for data recovery.

Source published

Apr 22, 2026, 4:08:36 PM (timezone not stated)

Source modified

Apr 22, 2026, 5:24:11 PM (timezone not stated)

Observed here

28 Oct 2026 04:55:18 UTC

Source terms

ENISA EUVD · source terms and attribution apply

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EUVD CVSS 3.1 · 5.6 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:L

A vulnerability in the rm utility of uutils coreutils allows the bypass of safeguard mechanisms intended to protect the current directory. While the utility correctly refuses to delete . or .., it fails to recognize equivalent paths with trailing slashes, such as ./ or .///. An accidental or malicious execution of rm -rf ./ results in the silent recursive deletion of all contents within the current directory. The command further obscures the data loss by reporting a misleading 'Invalid input' error, which may cause users to miss the critical window for data recovery.

Source published

22 Apr 2026 17:16:39 UTC

Source modified

26 Oct 2026 21:10:00 UTC

Observed here

27 Oct 2026 09:03:12 UTC

Source terms

NIST NVD usage terms; underlying source attribution retained

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CVSS 3.1 · [email protected] · Secondary · 5.6 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:L

`rm -rf .` is correctly refused, but `clean_trailing_slashes` normalizes `.///` to `./` while `path_is_current_or_parent_directory` only matches `.`/`..` (and `/.`/`/..`), not `./` or `../`. So `rm -rf ./` recursively deletes the directory's contents and then prints a misleading `cannot remove './': Invalid input`. **Impact:** all files/subdirectories in the current directory are silently deleted; the misleading error makes users miss the recovery window. Recommendation: handle trailing-slash variants in `path_is_current_or_parent_directory`. **Remediation:** Acknowledged by Canonical; fixed in commit d0e5af23. --- _Reported by Zellic in the *uutils coreutils Program Security Assessment* (prepared for Canonical, Jan 20 2026), audited commit `3a07ffc5a9bd4c283e75afa548ba1f1957bad242`. Finding 3.60. Credit: Zellic._ _Upstream tracking issue: https://github.com/uutils/coreutils/issues/9749 · CVE-2026-35363_

Source published

6 Jul 2026 20:20:56 UTC

Source modified

6 Jul 2026 20:41:13 UTC

Observed here

24 Oct 2026 13:19:54 UTC

Source terms

GitHub Advisory Database · CC-BY-4.0

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This view projects the publisher's source fields for reading; the original JSON retains additional fields and CVE enrichment containers. Attribution: osv · GitHub Advisory Database · CC-BY-4.0. Source text is retained; field grouping and change labels are provided by ChangeIntel.

CVSS_V3 · CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:L

Publisher rating · MODERATE