Nix allows macOS sandbox escape via built-in builders
Nix is a package manager for Linux and other Unix systems. On macOS, built-in builders (such as `builtin:fetchurl`, exposed to users with `import `) were not executed in the macOS sandbox. Thus, these builders (which are running under the `nixbld*` users) had read access to world-readable paths and write access to world-writable paths outside of the sandbox. This issue is fixed in 2.18.9, 2.19.7, 2.20.9, 2.21.5, 2.22.4, 2.23.4, and 2.24.10. Note that sandboxing is not enabled by default on macOS. The Nix sandbox is not primarily intended as a security mechanism, but as an aid to improve reproducibility and purity of Nix builds. However, sandboxing *can* mitigate the impact of other security issues by limiting what parts of the host system a build has access to.
- Products
- Not specified
- Affected versions
- Not specified
- Fixed versions
- Not specified
- CVEs
- CVE-2024-51481
- Confirmed fixed CVEs
- Not specified
- Updated in this feed
- 4 Nov 2026, 17:11 UTC · Revision 1
Source evidence
Nix allows macOS sandbox escape via built-in builders
core-osv · Original sourcePublished 31 Oct 2024, 16:10 UTC
Nix is a package manager for Linux and other Unix systems. On macOS, built-in builders (such as `builtin:fetchurl`, exposed to users with `import `) were not executed in the macOS sandbox. Thus, these builders (which are running under the `nixbld*` users) had read access to world-readable paths and write access to world-writable paths outside of the sandbox. This issue is fixed in 2.18.9, 2.19.7, 2.20.9, 2.21.5, 2.22.4, 2.23.4, and 2.24.10. Note that sandboxing is not enabled by default on macOS. The Nix sandbox is not primarily intended as a security mechanism, but as an aid to improve reproducibility and purity of Nix builds. However, sandboxing *can* mitigate the impact of other security issues by limiting what parts of the host system a build has access to.
osv:CVE-2024-51481
Complete source record
{
"id": "8b49f741dc7261ad108b15904b94d18659c0f0e39b595efd64bf63ac044b892c",
"url": "https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2024-51481",
"method": "structured",
"payload": {
"kind": "advisory",
"title": "Nix allows macOS sandbox escape via built-in builders",
"summary": "Nix is a package manager for Linux and other Unix systems. On macOS, built-in builders (such as `builtin:fetchurl`, exposed to users with `import `) were not executed in the macOS sandbox. Thus, these builders (which are running under the `nixbld*` users) had read access to world-readable paths and write access to world-writable paths outside of the sandbox. This issue is fixed in 2.18.9, 2.19.7, 2.20.9, 2.21.5, 2.22.4, 2.23.4, and 2.24.10. Note that sandboxing is not enabled by default on macOS. The Nix sandbox is not primarily intended as a security mechanism, but as an aid to improve reproducibility and purity of Nix builds. However, sandboxing *can* mitigate the impact of other security issues by limiting what parts of the host system a build has access to.",
"evidence": "osv:CVE-2024-51481",
"products": [],
"severity": "low",
"structured": {
"id": "CVE-2024-51481",
"aliases": [
"CVE-2024-51481",
"GHSA-wf4c-57rh-9pjg"
],
"metrics": [
{
"type": "CVSS_V4",
"score": "CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:H/AT:P/PR:L/UI:P/VC:L/VI:L/VA:N/SC:L/SI:L/SA:N"
}
],
"affected": [
{
"ranges": [
{
"repo": "https://github.com/nixos/nix",
"type": "GIT",
"events": [
{
"introduced": "0"
},
{
"fixed": "0f665ff6779454f2117dcc32e44380cda7f45523"
},
{
"introduced": "16e1ff3bcb5e785cce6bff8d0745e2a73fbd99de"
},
{
"fixed": "d9775222fbfa7e5d8ce1f722ea2968ff840324b4"
},
{
"introduced": "34807c8906a61219ec2e9132c9cf0bd4d29e1d12"
},
{
"fixed": "3824dfde1a42d0ecea4174dbcc4059d889a57f14"
},
{
"introduced": "5fd799cfa70d22a625bc706a599b6244f654718d"
},
{
"fixed": "750db54bfc0fe1c4ae20af98f537c8607e25368c"
},
{
"introduced": "ba36959311e09bd798f7029c41e108d9d77c9ac0"
},
{
"fixed": "d01638028ac60645ffeb721340fd25ac8f8269bc"
},
{
"introduced": "206e32e2d7c72c940a4348648f5de46122c495c9"
},
{
"fixed": "597fcc98e18e3178734d06a9e7306250e8cb8d74"
}
],
"database_specific": {
"extracted_events": [
{
"range": [
{
"introduced": "0"
},
{
"fixed": "2.18.9"
}
],
"source": "AFFECTED_FIELD",
"strategy": "StringRangeExpression"
},
{
"range": [
{
"introduced": "2.20.0"
},
{
"fixed": "2.20.9"
}
],
"source": "AFFECTED_FIELD",
"strategy": "StringRangeExpression"
},
{
"range": [
{
"introduced": "2.21.0"
},
{
"fixed": "2.21.5"
}
],
"source": "AFFECTED_FIELD",
"strategy": "StringRangeExpression"
},
{
"range": [
{
"introduced": "2.22.0"
},
{
"fixed": "2.22.4"
}
],
"source": "AFFECTED_FIELD",
"strategy": "StringRangeExpression"
},
{
"range": [
{
"introduced": "2.23.0"
},
{
"fixed": "2.23.4"
}
],
"source": "AFFECTED_FIELD",
"strategy": "StringRangeExpression"
},
{
"range": [
{
"introduced": "2.24.0"
},
{
"fixed": "2.24.10"
}
],
"source": "AFFECTED_FIELD",
"strategy": "StringRangeExpression"
},
{
"range": [
{
"fixed": "597fcc98e18e3178734d06a9e7306250e8cb8d74"
}
],
"source": "REFERENCES_COMMIT"
}
]
}
}
],
"versions": [
"2.24.9",
"2.18.8",
"2.24.8",
"2.24.7",
"2.18.7",
"2.18.6",
"2.24.6",
"2.24.5",
"2.24.4",
"2.24.3",
"2.24.2",
"2.24.1",
"2.24.0",
"2.21.4",
"2.20.8",
"2.18.5",
"2.23.3",
"2.22.3",
"2.23.2",
"2.23.1",
"2.22.2",
"2.18.4",
"2.20.7",
"2.21.3",
"2.18.3",
"2.23.0",
"2.22.1",
"2.22.0",
"2.20.6",
"2.21.2",
"2.21.1",
"2.21.0",
"2.20.5",
"2.18.2",
"2.20.4",
"2.20.3",
"2.20.2",
"2.20.1",
"2.20.0",
"2.18.1",
"2.18.0",
"2.2",
"2.0",
"1.11.1",
"1.11",
"1.10",
"1.9",
"1.8",
"1.7",
"1.6.1",
"1.6",
"1.5.3",
"1.5.2",
"1.5.1",
"1.5",
"1.4",
"1.3",
"1.2",
"1.1",
"1.0"
],
"database_specific": {
"source": "https://storage.googleapis.com/cve-osv-conversion/osv-output/CVE-2024-51481.json"
}
}
],
"modified": "2026-10-28T02:30:38.051714167Z",
"provider": "osv",
"references": [
"https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/tree/main/cves/2024/51xxx/CVE-2024-51481.json",
"https://github.com/NixOS/nix/security/advisories/GHSA-wf4c-57rh-9pjg",
"https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-51481",
"https://github.com/NixOS/nix/commit/597fcc98e18e3178734d06a9e7306250e8cb8d74"
],
"provider_metadata": {
"cwe_ids": [
"CWE-693"
],
"cna_assigner": "GitHub_M",
"unresolved_ranges": [
{
"extracted_events": [
{
"range": [
{
"introduced": ">= 2.19.0, < 2.19.7, 2.20.9, 2.21.5, 2.22.4, 2.23.4, 2.24.10"
},
{
"last_affected": ">= 2.19.0, < 2.19.7, 2.20.9, 2.21.5, 2.22.4, 2.23.4, 2.24.10"
}
],
"source": "AFFECTED_FIELD",
"strategy": "StandaloneSingleVersion"
}
]
}
],
"osv_generated_from": "https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/tree/main/cves/2024/51xxx/CVE-2024-51481.json"
}
},
"related_cves": [
{
"value": "CVE-2024-51481",
"evidence": "/id"
}
],
"security_relevant": true,
"severity_evidence": "/severity/0/score"
},
"source_id": "core-osv",
"document_id": 505171,
"published_at": "2024-10-31T16:10:22.398+00:00"
}