filelock is a platform-independent file lock for Python. From 3.10.0 until 4.2.1, filelock on Windows ignores the mode argument for WindowsFileLock files and the ReadWriteLock SQLite database. A lock created with mode=0o600 receives the parent directory's inheritable ACL because _open_non_reparse_fd and _nt_open do not create an owner-only security descriptor. Another local account with inherited access can read holder metadata or the lock database, modify those files where the ACL permits writes, or take the byte-range lock after release and delay later acquisitions. UnixFileLock is not affected, and mutual exclusion between cooperating processes continues to hold. This issue is fixed in version 4.2.1.