Home/CVE/Linux Kernel Improper Privilege Management Vulnerability
CVE

CVE-2019-13272

Linux Kernel Improper Privilege Management Vulnerability

In the Linux kernel before 5.1.17, ptrace_link in kernel/ptrace.c mishandles the recording of the credentials of a process that wants to create a ptrace relationship, which allows local users to obtain root access by leveraging certain scenarios with a parent-child process relationship, where a parent drops privileges and calls execve (potentially allowing control by an attacker). One contributing factor is an object lifetime issue (which can also cause a panic). Another contributing factor is incorrect marking of a ptrace relationship as privileged, which is exploitable through (for example) Polkit's pkexec helper with PTRACE_TRACEME.

NOTE: SELinux deny_ptrace might be a usable workaround in some environments.

HIGH · CVSS 7.8 ⚠ CISA KEV EPSS 0.80379
Act now
  • Listed on CISA KEV (known exploited in the wild)
  • SSVC exploitation status: active
  • EPSS ≥ 0.50 - high probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
  • EPSS percentile: top 1% of all CVEs by exploitation likelihood
  • Public exploit or PoC is available
  • CVSS base score ≥ 7.0
Sigma rules0 YARA rules0

Required Remediation

Apply updates per vendor instructions.

Affected Products & Versions

29

Scoring & Timeline

7.8
HIGH · CVSS v3.1 · cve@mitre.org
View on NVD
Attack Vector
Network Adjacent Local Physical
Attack Complexity
Low High
Privileges Required
None Low High
User Interaction
None Required
Scope
Unchanged Changed
Confidentiality
None Low High
Integrity
None Low High
Availability
None Low High
Published to NVD17 Jul 2019 · 01:15 PM
CVSS VectorCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
SSVC triage · cisa-vulnrichment
Exploitation
active
Automatable
no
Technical impact
total
SSVC asks the questions that actually drive patch urgency: is it being exploited, can attacks be automated, and how total is the impact.

Vendor Advisories

26
suse-csafSUSE-SU-2019:3246-1
suse-csafSUSE-SU-2019:3247-1
suse-csafSUSE-SU-2019:3248-1
suse-csafSUSE-SU-2019:3249-1
🔗

References & Sources

20
Source URLs (vendor pages, mailing lists, write-ups). Exploit/PoC links are in their own section above to avoid duplication.
https://bugzilla.suse.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1140671Issue TrackingPatchThird Party Advisory
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