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VulnerabilityPublished

CVE-2025-53881: openSUSE Tumbleweed · UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following

Affects openSUSE TumbleweedSource CVE Database V5

0

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 6.9 Medium.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 14:05 UTC

CVSS 4.0 base score
6.9Medium
How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.
EPSS
0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 6% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:L/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

Exploitation evidence

  1. Disclosed: evidence found.

    CVE published 2 Oct 2025

  2. Detectable: no evidence on record.

    No public nuclei template indexed

  3. Weaponised: no evidence on record.

    No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB

  4. Exploited in the wild: no evidence on record.

    Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation

  5. Observed by OffSeq Mirage: no evidence on record.

    No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 26 Oct 2026.

What to do

Affected software

ProductAffectedFixed in
openSUSE TumbleweedAffected
  • =4.98.2-lp156.248.1
Fixed in–

AI-suggested

  1. Immediate application of patches: Organizations should monitor openSUSE security advisories and apply updates to the exim package and logrotate configurations as soon as patches become available.
  2. Restrict local access: Limit the number of users with mail user/group privileges and enforce strict access controls to reduce the risk of local exploitation.
  3. Harden logrotate configurations: Review and modify logrotate scripts and configurations to avoid following symbolic links or to validate symlinks securely before processing.
  4. Implement file system protections: Use mount options such as 'nosymfollow' where applicable to prevent symlink following in sensitive directories.
  5. Monitor logs and system behavior: Deploy intrusion detection systems and monitor logs for unusual activity related to exim, logrotate, or privilege escalations.
  6. Employ mandatory access controls (MAC): Utilize AppArmor, SELinux, or similar frameworks to restrict the capabilities of the exim process and logrotate, limiting their ability to follow symlinks or escalate privileges.
  7. Conduct regular security audits: Periodically audit user privileges and system configurations to detect and remediate potential misconfigurations that could facilitate exploitation.

Description

A UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following vulnerability in logrotate config in the exim package allowed privilege escalation from mail user/group to root.This issue affects Tumbleweed: from ? before 4.98.2-lp156.248.1.

References

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