What is CVE-2021-20197?

CVE-2021-20197 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Broadcom Brocade Fabric Operating System Firmware, classified under Improper Link Resolution Before File Access. CVSS score: 6.3/10. Published 2021-03-26.

How severe is CVE-2021-20197?

Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 6.3 out of 10.

Is CVE-2021-20197 known to be exploited?

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

Vulnerability in Broadcom Brocade Fabric Operating System Firmware

CVE-2021-20197

There is an open race window when writing output in the following utilities in GNU binutils version 2.35 and earlier:ar, objcopy, strip, ranlib. When these utilities are run as a privileged user (presumably as part of a script updating binaries across different users), an unprivileged user can trick these utilities into getting ownership of arbitrary files through a symlink.

Published 2021-03-26 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 6.3 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.003 (23.3th percentile), scored 2026-11-01.

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 23rd percentile — 23.3% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.003 · newest: 0.003 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Broadcom Brocade Fabric Operating System Firmware
GNU Binutils
NetApp Cloud Backup
NetApp Ontap Select Deploy Administration Utility
NetApp Solidfire \& Hci Management Node
Red Hat Enterprise Linux — versions 8.0
Binutils — versions binutils 2.35

Weakness classification (CWE)

Public proof-of-concept exploits

fokypoky/places-list

References

bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi (Patch, Third Party Advisory, Issue Tracking)
sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi (Patch, Third Party Advisory, Issue Tracking)
security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20210528-0009/ (Third Party Advisory)
security.gentoo.org/glsa/202208-30 (vendor-advisory, Third Party Advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2021-20197?: CVE-2021-20197 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Broadcom Brocade Fabric Operating System Firmware, classified under Improper Link Resolution Before File Access. CVSS score: 6.3/10. Published 2021-03-26.
How severe is CVE-2021-20197?: Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 6.3 out of 10.
Is CVE-2021-20197 known to be exploited?: 1 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.