CVE-2017-9780
HighSummary
In Flatpak before 0.8.7, third-party app repositories could include malicious apps with files having inappropriate permissions, such as setuid or world-writable. These files could be executed by a local attacker or allow writing to world-writable locations.
Risk Assessment
The risk to the organization involves the potential execution of malicious code with root privileges, which could lead to serious security breaches.
Recommendation
It is recommended to update Flatpak to version 0.8.7 or later and to monitor and verify file permissions in applications from third-party repositories.
Other vulnerabilities in Flatpak
See all- CVE-2026-34078Critical
Flatpak prior to 1.16.4 contains a vulnerability where the Flatpak portal accepts paths in the sandbox-expose options which can be app-controlled symlinks pointing at arbitrary paths. Flatpak run mounts the resolved host path in the sandbox, giving apps access to all host files and can be used as a primitive to gain code execution in the host context.
- CVE-2026-34079High
In Flatpak prior to version 1.16.4, the ld.so caching mechanism removes outdated cache files without verifying that the app-controlled path is within the cache directory. This allows Flatpak apps to delete arbitrary files on the host.
Original NVD description (English source)
In Flatpak before 0.8.7, a third-party app repository could include malicious apps that contain files with inappropriate permissions, for example setuid or world-writable. The files are deployed with those permissions, which would let a local attacker run the setuid executable or write to the world-writable location. In the case of the "system helper" component, files deployed as part of the app are owned by root, so in the worst case they could be setuid root.