Monitor vulnerabilities like this one.
Sign up free to get alerted when software you use is affected.
Nix Package Manager Allows Malicious Files to be Overwritten on Linux Systems
DEBIAN-CVE-2026-39860
Summary
A bug in the Nix package manager for Linux allows malicious users to overwrite files on the system. This could give them root access to the system if the Nix daemon is running as root. To fix this, update to version 2.34.5 or later on Linux systems.
What to do
No fix is available yet. Check with your software vendor for updates.
Affected software
| Vendor | Product | Affected versions | Fix available |
|---|---|---|---|
| debian | nix | All versions | – |
| debian | nix | All versions | – |
| debian | nix | All versions | – |
| debian | nix | All versions | – |
Original title
Nix is a package manager for Linux and other Unix systems. A bug in the fix for CVE-2024-27297 allowed for arbitrary overwrites of files writable by the Nix process orchestrating the builds (typica...
Original description
Nix is a package manager for Linux and other Unix systems. A bug in the fix for CVE-2024-27297 allowed for arbitrary overwrites of files writable by the Nix process orchestrating the builds (typically the Nix daemon running as root in multi-user installations) by following symlinks during fixed-output derivation output registration. This affects sandboxed Linux builds - sandboxed macOS builds are unaffected. The location of the temporary output used for the output copy was located inside the build chroot. A symlink, pointing to an arbitrary location in the filesystem, could be created by the derivation builder at that path. During output registration, the Nix process (running in the host mount namespace) would follow that symlink and overwrite the destination with the derivation's output contents. In multi-user installations, this allows all users able to submit builds to the Nix daemon (allowed-users - defaulting to all users) to gain root privileges by modifying sensitive files. This vulnerability is fixed in 2.34.5, 2.33.4, 2.32.7, 2.31.4, 2.30.4, 2.29.3, and 2.28.6.
- https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2026-39860 Vendor Advisory
Published: 8 Apr 2026 · Updated: 9 Apr 2026 · First seen: 9 Apr 2026