cp, when running with an option to preserve symlinks on multiple OSes, allows local, user-assisted attackers to overwrite arbitrary files v…

published 2008-01-31 18 y ago modified 2026-06-16 4 mo ago also EUVD-2007-4979

cvss: 6.9; version 2.0, NVD
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 0.3%; EPSS 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 28%
public exploits: 0; none known

cp, when running with an option to preserve symlinks on multiple OSes, allows local, user-assisted attackers to overwrite arbitrary files via a symlink attack using crafted directories containing multiple source files that are copied to the same destination.

Patch / fix

distros 2

debian azure linux

coreutils Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 4.1.2

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2007-4998

kernel Azure Linux 3.0 6.6.35.1-4
kernel CBL-Mariner 2.0 5.10.78.1-1

azure linux advisories AZL-34843 AZL-6512

Azure Linux vulnerability data, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, from https://github.com/microsoft/AzureLinuxVulnerabilityData via OSV, under the MIT licence; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. MIT

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-2007-4998 updated 2025-11-21

cp symlink overwrite

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

0.35% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 28% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
NVD	2.0	6.9	AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

Classification

Weakness

CWE-59 Improper Link Resolution Before File Access

Technology feeds

Linux kernel rss critical rss

References

Sources

CVE List CVE-2007-4998
NVD CVE-2007-4998

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