Race condition in GNU screen 4.0.3 allows local users to create or overwrite arbitrary files via a symlink attack on the /tmp/screen-exchan…

published 2009-04-01 17 y ago modified 2026-06-16 4 mo ago also EUVD-2009-1214

cvss: 1.9; version 2.0, NVD
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 0.2%; EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 14%
public exploits: 0; none known

Race condition in GNU screen 4.0.3 allows local users to create or overwrite arbitrary files via a symlink attack on the /tmp/screen-exchange temporary file.

Patch / fix

distros 1

screen Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 4.0.3-13

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2009-1215

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2009-1215 updated 2025-11-21

screen: Unsafe usage of temporary file

Red Hat All currently supported Red Hat products
not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

0.23% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 14% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
NVD	2.0	1.9	AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:N

Classification

Weakness

CWE-362 Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization

References

Sources

CVE List CVE-2009-1215
NVD CVE-2009-1215

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

Summary