CVE-2009-5079: GNU Groff

Low severity, CVSS 3.3. EPSS: 0.3% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

The (1) gendef.sh, (2) doc/fixinfo.sh, and (3) contrib/gdiffmk/tests/runtests.in scripts in GNU troff (aka groff) 1.21 and earlier allow local users to overwrite arbitrary files via a symlink attack on a gro#####.tmp or /tmp/##### temporary file.

Affected products

• GNU Groff: up to and including 1.21; version 1.10 only; version 1.11 only; version 1.11a only; version 1.14 only; version 1.15 only; …

Published 2011-06-30. Last modified 2026-06-16.