Skip to content
Heist/ feed
Back to feed
Medium

uutils coreutils chown and chgrp False Success Exit Code in Recursive Mode

Type: advisorySources: OSV

A flaw in the ChownExecutor used by uutils coreutils chown and chgrp causes the utilities to return an incorrect exit code during recursive operations. The final exit code is determined only by the last file processed. If the last operation succeeds, the command returns 0 even if earlier ownership or group changes failed due to permission errors. This can lead to security misconfigurations where administrative scripts incorrectly assume that ownership has been successfully transferred across a directory tree.

Products
Not specified
Affected versions
Not specified
Fixed versions
Not specified
CVEs
CVE-2026-35340
Confirmed fixed CVEs
Not specified
Updated in this feed
7 Nov 2026, 02:50 UTC · Revision 1

Source evidence

uutils coreutils chown and chgrp False Success Exit Code in Recursive Mode

core-osv · Original source

Published 22 Apr 2026, 16:07 UTC

A flaw in the ChownExecutor used by uutils coreutils chown and chgrp causes the utilities to return an incorrect exit code during recursive operations. The final exit code is determined only by the last file processed. If the last operation succeeds, the command returns 0 even if earlier ownership or group changes failed due to permission errors. This can lead to security misconfigurations where administrative scripts incorrectly assume that ownership has been successfully transferred across a directory tree.

osv:CVE-2026-35340
Complete source record
{
  "id": "3e780a602053f798fc74fc1a668c01288cc9e2c0cd176bf887d46c7d5af3e259",
  "url": "https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-35340",
  "method": "structured",
  "payload": {
    "kind": "advisory",
    "title": "uutils coreutils chown and chgrp False Success Exit Code in Recursive Mode",
    "summary": "A flaw in the ChownExecutor used by uutils coreutils chown and chgrp causes the utilities to return an incorrect exit code during recursive operations. The final exit code is determined only by the last file processed. If the last operation succeeds, the command returns 0 even if earlier ownership or group changes failed due to permission errors. This can lead to security misconfigurations where administrative scripts incorrectly assume that ownership has been successfully transferred across a directory tree.",
    "evidence": "osv:CVE-2026-35340",
    "products": [],
    "severity": "medium",
    "structured": {
      "id": "CVE-2026-35340",
      "aliases": [
        "CVE-2026-35340"
      ],
      "metrics": [
        {
          "type": "CVSS_V3",
          "score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N"
        }
      ],
      "affected": [
        {
          "ranges": [
            {
              "repo": "https://github.com/uutils/coreutils",
              "type": "GIT",
              "events": [
                {
                  "introduced": "0"
                },
                {
                  "fixed": "2319a99057d11b0c9744c885df84806eea019166"
                }
              ],
              "database_specific": {
                "extracted_events": [
                  {
                    "range": [
                      {
                        "introduced": "0"
                      },
                      {
                        "fixed": "0.6.0"
                      }
                    ],
                    "source": "AFFECTED_FIELD",
                    "strategy": "StandardRange"
                  },
                  {
                    "range": [
                      {
                        "fixed": "2319a99057d11b0c9744c885df84806eea019166"
                      }
                    ],
                    "source": "REFERENCES_TAG",
                    "original_tag": "0.6.0"
                  },
                  {
                    "cpe": "cpe:2.3:a:uutils:coreutils:*:*:*:*:*:rust:*:*",
                    "range": [
                      {
                        "introduced": "0"
                      },
                      {
                        "fixed": "0.6.0"
                      }
                    ],
                    "source": "CPE_RANGE"
                  }
                ]
              }
            }
          ],
          "versions": [
            "latest-commit",
            "0.5.0",
            "0.4.0",
            "0.3.0",
            "0.2.2",
            "0.2.0",
            "0.1.0",
            "0.0.30-delete",
            "0.0.30",
            "0.0.29",
            "0.0.28",
            "0.0.27",
            "0.0.26",
            "0.0.25",
            "0.0.24",
            "0.0.23",
            "0.0.22",
            "0.0.21",
            "0.0.20",
            "0.0.19",
            "0.0.18",
            "0.0.17",
            "0.0.16",
            "0.0.15",
            "0.0.14",
            "0.0.13",
            "0.0.12",
            "0.0.9",
            "0.0.8",
            "0.0.7",
            "0.0.6",
            "0.0.5",
            "0.0.3",
            "0.0.2",
            "0.0.1"
          ],
          "database_specific": {
            "source": "https://storage.googleapis.com/cve-osv-conversion/osv-output/CVE-2026-35340.json"
          }
        }
      ],
      "modified": "2026-10-28T02:30:49.232220368Z",
      "provider": "osv",
      "references": [
        "https://github.com/uutils",
        "https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/tree/main/cves/2026/35xxx/CVE-2026-35340.json",
        "https://github.com/uutils/coreutils/releases/tag/0.6.0",
        "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-35340",
        "https://github.com/uutils/coreutils/pull/10035",
        "https://github.com/uutils/coreutils"
      ],
      "provider_metadata": {
        "cwe_ids": [
          "CWE-253"
        ],
        "cna_assigner": "canonical",
        "osv_generated_from": "https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/tree/main/cves/2026/35xxx/CVE-2026-35340.json"
      }
    },
    "related_cves": [
      {
        "value": "CVE-2026-35340",
        "evidence": "/id"
      }
    ],
    "security_relevant": true,
    "severity_evidence": "/severity/0/score"
  },
  "source_id": "core-osv",
  "document_id": 517504,
  "published_at": "2026-04-22T16:07:36.708+00:00"
}