Nix sandbox escape

Description

Nix is a package manager for Linux and other Unix systems that makes package management reliable and reproducible. A build process has access to and can change the permissions of the build directory. After creating a setuid binary in a globally accessible location, a malicious local user can assume the permissions of a Nix daemon worker and hijack all future builds. This issue was patched in version(s) 2.23.1, 2.22.2, 2.21.3, 2.20.7, 2.19.5 and 2.18.4.

Scores

EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)

0.14% · top 96% of all CVEs (6 Nov 2026)

CISA SSVC

Exploitation: none · Automatable: no · Technical impact: partial

The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: Low 3.6.

Weakness

• CWE-278: Insecure Preserved Inherited Permissions (opens in a new tab)All about CWE-278 and its CVEs

Affected products

• NixOS · nix

  • affected >= 2.23.0, < 2.23.1
  • affected >= 2.22.0, < 2.22.2
  • affected >= 2.21.0, < 2.21.3
  • affected >= 2.20.0, < 2.20.7
  • affected >= 2.19.0, < 2.19.5
  • affected >= 2.18.0, < 2.18.4

References (2)

• https://github.com/NixOS/nix/security/advisories/GHSA-q82p-44mg-mgh5 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_CONFIRMx_transferred
• https://github.com/NixOS/nix/pull/10501 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISCx_transferred

Sources

The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.

• CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
• CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
• NVD (opens in a new tab)
• FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
• OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
• GitHub Advisories (opens in a new tab)
• CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)

Badge for a README or a ticket

[![CVE-2024-38531](https://trackcve.app/badge/CVE-2024-38531.svg)](https://trackcve.app/cve/CVE-2024-38531)

Record last updated 2 Aug 2024, 04:12 UTC.