bug#47420: binutils is vulnerable to CVE-2021-20197 (and various others)

[Léo Le Bouter]

CVE-2021-20197  18:15
There is an open race window when writing output in the following
utilities in GNU binutils version 2.35 and earlier:ar, objcopy, strip,
ranlib. When these utilities are run as a privileged user (presumably
as part of a script updating binaries across different users), an
unprivileged user can trick these utilities into getting ownership of
arbitrary files through a symlink.

For the two versions packaged in GNU Guix we have:

$ ./pre-inst-env guix lint -c cve binutils@2.33
gnu/packages/base.scm:584:2: binutils@2.33.1: probably vulnerable to
CVE-2020-35493, CVE-2020-35494, CVE-2020-35495, CVE-2020-35496, CVE-
2020-35507

$ ./pre-inst-env guix lint -c cve binutils@2.34
gnu/packages/base.scm:571:2: binutils@2.34: probably vulnerable to CVE-
2020-16590, CVE-2020-16591, CVE-2020-16592, CVE-2020-16593, CVE-2020-
16599

Because they are also build tools for GNU Guix itself, we can't fix
this in grafts, a review of each and every CVE can be made to evaluate
whether we must fix it for GNU Guix's internal usage can be made, but
also we should update it and not use any vulnerable version anywhere so
we can be certain we didnt miss anything.

Can binutils be upgraded just like that? Or must it be upgraded in
tandem with GCC and friends?

Thank you,
Léo

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