CVE-2020-10174: Canonical Ubuntu Linux

High severity, CVSS 7.0. EPSS: 0.3% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

init_tmp in TeeJee.FileSystem.vala in Timeshift before 20.03 unsafely reuses a preexisting temporary directory in the predictable location /tmp/timeshift. It follows symlinks in this location or uses directories owned by unprivileged users. Because Timeshift also executes scripts under this location, an attacker can attempt to win a race condition to replace scripts created by Timeshift with attacker-controlled scripts. Upon success, an attacker-controlled script is executed with full root privileges. This logic is practically always triggered when Timeshift runs regardless of the command-line arguments used.

Affected products

• Canonical Ubuntu Linux: version 19.10 only
• Fedoraproject Fedora: version 30 only; version 31 only; version 32 only
• Timeshift Project Timeshift: before 20.03 (fixed in 20.03)

Published 2020-03-05. Last modified 2026-06-17.