CVE-2020-8017: race condition on texlive-filesystem cron job allows for the deletion of unintended files

Severity: medium (CVSS 6.3 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2020-04-02 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-367

Description

A Race Condition Enabling Link Following vulnerability in the cron job shipped with texlive-filesystem of SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Desktop Applications 15-SP1, SUSE Linux Enterprise Software Development Kit 12-SP4, SUSE Linux Enterprise Software Development Kit 12-SP5; openSUSE Leap 15.1 allows local users in group mktex to delete arbitrary files on the system This issue affects: SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Desktop Applications 15-SP1 texlive-filesystem versions prior to 2017.135-9.5.1. SUSE Linux Enterprise Software Development Kit 12-SP4 texlive-filesystem versions prior to 2013.74-16.5.1. SUSE Linux Enterprise Software Development Kit 12-SP5 texlive-filesystem versions prior to 2013.74-16.5.1. openSUSE Leap 15.1 texlive-filesystem versions prior to 2017.135-lp151.8.3.1.

Affected products

openSUSE Leap: 15.1
openSUSE Texlive-Filesystem: before 2017.135-9.5.1; before 2013.74-16.5.1; before 2017.135-lp151.8.3.1 — fixed in 2013.74-16.5.1, 2017.135-9.5.1, 2017.135-lp151.8.3.1

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: openSUSE Texlive-Filesystem 2013.74-16.5.1, 2017.135-9.5.1, 2017.135-lp151.8.3.1. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

Get alerted when CVE-2020-8017 or the next vulnerability affects your stack