LinuxOperating system · Redhat
CVE-1999-1095
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedsort creates temporary files and follows symbolic links, which allows local users to modify arbitrary files that are writable by the user running sort, as observed in updatedb and other programs that use sort.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · high confidenceThe sort utility creates temporary files in a predictable manner and follows symbolic links, allowing a local attacker to create a symlink in the temp directory that sort will write to, thereby modifying arbitrary files writable by the sort process. This is a symlink race condition vulnerability.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data
LinuxOperating system
= 4.1= 3.3CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Local
- Complexity
- Low
- Authentication
- None
- Confidentiality
- Complete
- Integrity
- Complete
- Availability
- Complete
AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify sort versionRun `sort --version` or check the sort package version with your system's package manager (rpm -q sort for Redhat-based, pkgtool for Slackware)Affected if The installed version matches Redhat Linux 4.1 or Slackware Linux 3.3 specifically, or the version is older and unpatched
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Verify effective user privilegesRun `id` or check if sort is being executed with elevated (root) privileges using `ps aux | grep sort` during operationAffected if Sort is running with root or other elevated privileges on a shared system
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Examine temporary file locationCheck the TMPDIR environment variable and the default /tmp permissions: `ls -ld /tmp` and `echo $TMPDIR`Affected if TMPDIR points to a world-writable directory like /tmp with lax permissions, or is unset (defaulting to /tmp)
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Test symlink handling behaviorCreate a test directory, run sort on a file while observing if it follows symbolic links in the temp directory pathAffected if Sort follows symbolic links when creating temporary files in the designated temp directory
A user is affected if they are running the specific affected sort versions (Redhat 4.1 or Slackware 3.3) with elevated privileges on a system where the temporary directory is shared and allows symlink attacks.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor dataUpgrade sort to a version that uses secure temporary file creation (mkstemp, O_EXCL flags) and does not follow symbolic links when creating files; avoid running sort with elevated privileges on shared systems.
Fix this in Linux
Scoped from the published advisory
- Consultation1.0 h
- Testing1.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $1,200.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-1999-1095 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-1999-1095 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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