It was found that the fix for CVE-2017-7500 and CVE-2017-7501 was incomplete: the check was only implemented for the parent directory of the file to be created. A local unprivileged user who owns another ancestor directory could potentially use this flaw to gain root privileges. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to data confidentiality and integrity as well as system availability.

This issue requires that the attacker have admin privileges on the target system, and be able to own and modify system files. Considering the tradeoff between the stability of Amazon Linux and the impact of CVE-2021-35939 a fix will not be provided for Amazon Linux 1, Amazon Linux 2 and Amazon Linux 2023 at this time.