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Fencer Intel
medium 6.9

CVE-2013-4169 json

GNOME Display Manager (gdm) before 2.21.1 allows local users to change permissions of arbitrary directories via a symlink attack on /tmp/.X…

published 13y ago modified 4mo ago also EUVD-2013-4094

cvss
6.9
version 2.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.4%
EPSS 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 31%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

GNOME Display Manager (gdm) before 2.21.1 allows local users to change permissions of arbitrary directories via a symlink attack on /tmp/.X11-unix/.

Patch / fix

  • gdm RHEL 5 1:2.16.0-59.el5_9.1
  • initscripts RHEL 5 8.45.42-2.el5_9.1

red hat advisories RHSA-2013:1213

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Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2013-4169 updated cvss 6.2

gdm: TOCTTOU race condition on /tmp/.X11-unix

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (v. 5 server) gdm 2.16.0-59.el5_9.1, initscripts 8.45.42-2.el5_9.1
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2013:1213
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 gdm, gdm-libs, gdm-plugin-smartcard, gdm-plugin-fingerprint, gdm-user-switch-applet
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

0.37% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 31% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 2.0 6.9 AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-59 Improper Link Resolution Before File Access

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.