CVE-2015-3245 — Incomplete blacklist vulnerability in the chfn function in libuser before 0

Incomplete blacklist vulnerability in the chfn function in libuser before 0.56.13-8 and 0.60 before 0.60-7, as used in the userhelper program in the usermode package, allows local users to cause a denial of service (/etc/passwd corruption) via a newline character in the GECOS fie

01What is this vulnerability?

Incomplete blacklist vulnerability in the chfn function in libuser before 0.56.13-8 and 0.60 before 0.60-7, as used in the userhelper program in the usermode package, allows local users to cause a denial of service (/etc/passwd corruption) via a newline character in the GECOS field.

02Affected products

No structured affected-product list available — see references below for vendor advisories.

03Active exploitation status

Not currently listed on the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog. EPSS is the best forward-looking signal — see the EPSS row above.

04Recommended remediation

• Patch to a fixed version listed in the vendor advisory (see references below).
• Mitigate with WAF rules, network egress filters, or feature flags where the patch is not yet available.
• Hunt historical logs for exploitation indicators — see Detection signatures below.

05Technical details

For the full vendor write-up, exploit chains, and reference implementations, see the references list in section 09.

06Detection signatures

Open the Sigma generator with a pre-filled prompt for this CVE to draft a starting detection in your stack of choice:

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07Related CVEs

No directly-cited follow-up CVEs in the KB record for this advisory. The references list in section 09 carries the vendor cross-references.

08Timeline

• Published: 2015-08-11 (11y 2m ago)
• Last modified: 2026-06-17

09References

No additional references available in the KB record.