CWE-363: Race Condition Enabling Link Following
The product checks the status of a file or directory before accessing it, which produces a race condition in which the file can be replaced with a link before the access is performed, causing the product to access the wrong file.
Last updated
Overview
While developers might expect that there is a very narrow time window between the time of check and time of use, there is still a race condition. An attacker could cause the product to slow down (e.g. with memory consumption), causing the time window to become larger. Alternately, in some situations, the attacker could win the race by performing a large number of attacks.
Real-world CVEs
8 recorded CVEs are caused by CWE-363 (Race Condition Enabling Link Following). The highest-severity and most recent are shown first. 0 new CWE-363 CVEs have been recorded so far in 2026 (6 in 2025).
- CVE-2025-52565
container escape due to /dev/console mount and related races
High · CVSS 8.4 · EPSS 8th2025-11-06 - CVE-2025-52881
runc: LSM labels can be bypassed with malicious config using dummy procfs files
High · CVSS 7.3 · EPSS 4th2025-11-06 - CVE-2025-31133
runc container escape via "masked path" abuse due to mount race conditions