diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index 8c64d012f0..4aaed8bdb9 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 5.0.5
+ * Avoid CQLSH throwing an exception loading .cqlshrc on non-supported platforms (CASSANDRA-20478)
  * Relax validation of snapshot name as a part of SSTable files path validation (CASSANDRA-20649)
  * Optimize initial skipping logic for SAI queries on large partitions (CASSANDRA-20191)
  * Fix reading mmapped trie-index exceeding 2GiB (CASSANDRA-20351)
diff --git a/pylib/cqlshlib/util.py b/pylib/cqlshlib/util.py
index 144586aae0..90d95b9afe 100644
--- a/pylib/cqlshlib/util.py
+++ b/pylib/cqlshlib/util.py
@@ -117,12 +117,15 @@ def trim_if_present(s, prefix):
 def is_file_secure(filename):
     try:
         st = os.stat(filename)
+        uid = os.getuid()
     except OSError as e:
         if e.errno != errno.ENOENT:
             raise
         # the file doesn't exist, the security of it is irrelevant
         return True
-    uid = os.getuid()
+    except AttributeError as e:
+        # not-Unix os
+        return True
 
     # Skip enforcing the file owner and UID matching for the root user (uid == 0).
     # This is to allow "sudo cqlsh" to work with user owned credentials file.