# CVE-2025-52993: Race condition in Nix

> A race condition in Nix, Lix, and Guix allows attackers to change ownership of arbitrary files to the build user, enabling privilege escalation.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.6 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:L`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 27 Jun 2025
- **Updated:** 27 Jun 2025
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2025-52993, GHSA-hpxm-4hff-8prf, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-52993

## What is CVE-2025-52993?

CVE-2025-52993 is a medium-severity vulnerability in NixOS Nix, published on 27 Jun 2025. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

A race condition in the Nix, Lix, and Guix package managers enables changing the ownership of arbitrary files to the UID and GID of the build user (e.g., nixbld* or guixbuild*). This affects Nix before 2.24.15, 2.26.4, 2.28.4, and 2.29.1; Lix before 2.91.2, 2.92.2, and 2.93.1; and Guix before 1.4.0-38.0e79d5b.

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

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-52993?


## How do I fix CVE-2025-52993?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

## Is CVE-2025-52993 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-52993 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2025-52993 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2025-52993 is a medium-severity vulnerability in NixOS Nix, published on 27 Jun 2025. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-52993 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: NixOS Nix. 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-2025-52993/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-52993/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-52993
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-52993
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2025-52993

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-52993/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.