# CVE-2004-2697: Race condition in n/a

> Local attackers can exploit a race condition in the AIX Inventory Scout daemon to gain elevated privileges via symlink attacks.

- **Severity:** Medium 6.9 (`AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 6 Oct 2007
- **Updated:** 8 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-w84v-vmqq-p8vc

## What is CVE-2004-2697?

CVE-2004-2697 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Ibm Aix, published on 6 Oct 2007. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

The Inventory Scout daemon (invscoutd) 1.3.0.0 and 2.0.2 for AIX 4.3.3 and 5.1 allows local users to gain privileges via a symlink attack on a command line argument (log file).  NOTE: this might be related to CVE-2006-5002.

Weakness: CWE-362 (Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2004-2697?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Ibm Aix.

## How do I fix CVE-2004-2697?

No fix has been published for CVE-2004-2697 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2004-2697 being exploited?

It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2004-2697 exists.

Public exploit code:

- AIX 4.3.3/5.1 - Invscoutd Symbolic Link (exploitdb)

## Other vulnerabilities in Ibm Aix

- [CVE-2025-36250](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-36250/): AIX Code Execution (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2024-56346](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-56346/): IBM AIX command execution (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2010-3187](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2010-3187/): Memory corruption in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2009-3699](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2009-3699/): Memory corruption in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2009-3517](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2009-3517/): Auth bypass in n/a (critical 10.0)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2004-2697 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2004-2697 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Ibm Aix, published on 6 Oct 2007. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2004-2697 exists.

Affected product: Ibm Aix. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2004-2697/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2004-2697/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2004-2697
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2004-2697
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2004-2697

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2004-2697/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.