CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2017-8921 — Flightgear Flightgear security vulnerability

High CVSS 7.5

In FlightGear before 2017.2.1, the FGCommand interface allows overwriting any file the user has write access to, but not with arbitrary data: only with the contents of a FlightGear flightplan (XML). A resource such as a malicious third-party aircraft could exploit this to damage files belonging to the user. Both this issue and CVE-2016-9956 are directory traversal vulnerabilities in Autopilot/route_mgr.cxx - this one exists because of an incomplete fix for CVE-2016-9956.

Severity
High
CVSS
7.5 (3.0)
Published
2017-05-12
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-22

Affected products

  • flightgear / flightgear

Matched remediation archetype

Path traversal, unsafe upload, and file handling

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Trace untrusted filenames, archive entries, URLs, and path segments into read, write, include, extraction, and upload operations.
  • Identify filesystem roots, mount permissions, symbolic-link behavior, archive handling, and whether uploaded content is web-accessible or executable.
  • Review canonicalization and containment checks across supported operating systems and storage backends.

Remediate safely

  • Generate server-side storage identifiers and resolve paths beneath a fixed root using filesystem-aware containment checks.
  • Reject absolute, parent-relative, alternate-separator, device, link, and archive entries that escape the intended root.
  • Store uploads outside executable or served paths, validate type and size, and use private atomic temporary files.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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