Vulnerability Database

328,781

Total vulnerabilities in the database

CVE-2022-21658

Rust is a multi-paradigm, general-purpose programming language designed for performance and safety, especially safe concurrency. The Rust Security Response WG was notified that the std::fs::remove_dir_all standard library function is vulnerable a race condition enabling symlink following (CWE-363). An attacker could use this security issue to trick a privileged program into deleting files and directories the attacker couldn't otherwise access or delete. Rust 1.0.0 through Rust 1.58.0 is affected by this vulnerability with 1.58.1 containing a patch. Note that the following build targets don't have usable APIs to properly mitigate the attack, and are thus still vulnerable even with a patched toolchain: macOS before version 10.10 (Yosemite) and REDOX. We recommend everyone to update to Rust 1.58.1 as soon as possible, especially people developing programs expected to run in privileged contexts (including system daemons and setuid binaries), as those have the highest risk of being affected by this. Note that adding checks in your codebase before calling remove_dir_all will not mitigate the vulnerability, as they would also be vulnerable to race conditions like remove_dir_all itself. The existing mitigation is working as intended outside of race conditions.

  • Published: Jan 20, 2022
  • Updated: Nov 16, 2025
  • CVE: CVE-2022-21658
  • Severity: High
  • Exploit:

CVSS v3:

  • Severity: High
  • Score: 7.3
  • AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:L/A:H

CVSS v2:

  • Severity: Low
  • Score: 3.3
  • AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:P

CWEs:

Frequently Asked Questions

A security vulnerability is a weakness in software, hardware, or configuration that can be exploited to compromise confidentiality, integrity, or availability. Many vulnerabilities are tracked as CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), which provide a standardized identifier so teams can coordinate patching, mitigation, and risk assessment across tools and vendors.

CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) estimates technical severity, but it doesn't automatically equal business risk. Prioritize using context like internet exposure, affected asset criticality, known exploitation (proof-of-concept or in-the-wild), and whether compensating controls exist. A "Medium" CVSS on an exposed, production system can be more urgent than a "Critical" on an isolated, non-production host.

A vulnerability is the underlying weakness. An exploit is the method or code used to take advantage of it. A zero-day is a vulnerability that is unknown to the vendor or has no publicly available fix when attackers begin using it. In practice, risk increases sharply when exploitation becomes reliable or widespread.

Recurring findings usually come from incomplete Asset Discovery, inconsistent patch management, inherited images, and configuration drift. In modern environments, you also need to watch the software supply chain: dependencies, containers, build pipelines, and third-party services can reintroduce the same weakness even after you patch a single host. Unknown or unmanaged assets (often called Shadow IT) are a common reason the same issues resurface.

Use a simple, repeatable triage model: focus first on externally exposed assets, high-value systems (identity, VPN, email, production), vulnerabilities with known exploits, and issues that enable remote code execution or privilege escalation. Then enforce patch SLAs and track progress using consistent metrics so remediation is steady, not reactive.

SynScan combines attack surface monitoring and continuous security auditing to keep your inventory current, flag high-impact vulnerabilities early, and help you turn raw findings into a practical remediation plan.