What is CVE-2020-14367?

CVE-2020-14367 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Tuxfamily Chrony, classified under Improper Link Resolution Before File Access. CVSS score: 6.0/10. Published 2020-08-24.

How severe is CVE-2020-14367?

Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 6.0 out of 10.

Is CVE-2020-14367 known to be exploited?

2 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

Vulnerability in Tuxfamily Chrony

CVE-2020-14367

A flaw was found in chrony versions before 3.5.1 when creating the PID file under the /var/run/chrony folder. The file is created during chronyd startup while still running as the root user, and when it's opened for writing, chronyd does not check for an existing symbolic link with the same file name. This flaw allows an attacker with privileged access to create a symlink with the default PID file name pointing to any destination file in the system, resulting in data loss and a denial of service due to the path traversal.

Published 2020-08-24 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 6.0 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.005 (39.3th percentile), scored 2026-09-29.

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 39th percentile — 39.3% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.005 · newest: 0.005 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Tuxfamily Chrony
Canonical Ubuntu Linux — versions 18.04, 20.04
Fedoraproject Fedora — versions 32
Chrony — versions All chrony versions before 3.5.1

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-59 — Improper Link Resolution Before File Access

Public proof-of-concept exploits

References

lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/… (vendor-advisory)
bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi (Patch, Issue Tracking, Vendor Advisory)
security.gentoo.org/glsa/202008-23 (vendor-advisory, Third Party Advisory)
usn.ubuntu.com/4475-1/ (vendor-advisory, Third Party Advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2020-14367?: CVE-2020-14367 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Tuxfamily Chrony, classified under Improper Link Resolution Before File Access. CVSS score: 6.0/10. Published 2020-08-24.
How severe is CVE-2020-14367?: Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 6.0 out of 10.
Is CVE-2020-14367 known to be exploited?: 2 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.