CVE detail

CVE-2020-16120 — CVE-2020-16120

Published 2021-02-10 · Modified 2026-06-17 · Vendor linux · Product linux_kernel · Source nvd
MEDIUM
severity
CVSS-derived band
5.1
CVSS v3
0–10 scale
0.0040
EPSS probability
exploitation probability, 30d
33.0%
EPSS percentile
percentile vs all CVEs
NOT LISTED
CISA KEV
known exploited catalog

Description

Overlayfs did not properly perform permission checking when copying up files in an overlayfs and could be exploited from within a user namespace, if, for example, unprivileged user namespaces were allowed. It was possible to have a file not readable by an unprivileged user to be copied to a mountpoint controlled by the user, like a removable device. This was introduced in kernel version 4.19 by commit d1d04ef ("ovl: stack file ops"). This was fixed in kernel version 5.8 by commits 56230d9 ("ovl: verify permissions in ovl_path_open()"), 48bd024 ("ovl: switch to mounter creds in readdir") and 05acefb ("ovl: check permission to open real file"). Additionally, commits 130fdbc ("ovl: pass correct flags for opening real directory") and 292f902 ("ovl: call secutiry hook in ovl_real_ioctl()") in k

Remediation

No vendor-published fix data in our corpus for this CVE. Check the references below or the vendor's PSIRT / security advisories page.

References

cvedb.io · NVD · CISA KEV · FIRST EPSS · vendor advisories (CVE Program List v5). Informational only, no warranty — verify every remediation against the vendor advisory before acting on it. This product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD, CISA, FIRST.org or any vendor named. CVE® is a registered trademark of The MITRE Corporation.