CVE-2017-16355 — In agent/Core/SpawningKit/Spawner
In agent/Core/SpawningKit/Spawner.h in Phusion Passenger 5.1.10 (fixed in Passenger Open Source 5.1.11 and Passenger Enterprise 5.1.10), if Passenger is running as root, it is possible to list the contents of arbitrary files on a system by symlinking a file named REVISION from th
Published
2017-12-14T22:29:00.210
Last modified
2026-05-13T00:24:29.033
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
01What is this vulnerability?
In agent/Core/SpawningKit/Spawner.h in Phusion Passenger 5.1.10 (fixed in Passenger Open Source 5.1.11 and Passenger Enterprise 5.1.10), if Passenger is running as root, it is possible to list the contents of arbitrary files on a system by symlinking a file named REVISION from the application root folder to a file of choice and querying passenger-status --show=xml.
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
Ask SARA in chat to draft a starting detection for this CVE in your stack of choice.
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: 2017-12-14T22:29:00.210
- Last modified: 2026-05-13T00:24:29.033
09References
- blog.phusion.nl — https://blog.phusion.nl/2017/10/13/passenger-security-advisory-5-1-11/
- github.com — https://github.com/phusion/passenger/commit/4043718264095cde6623c2cbe8c644541036…
- seclists.org — https://seclists.org/bugtraq/2019/Mar/34
- www.debian.org — https://www.debian.org/security/2019/dsa-4415
- blog.phusion.nl — https://blog.phusion.nl/2017/10/13/passenger-security-advisory-5-1-11/
- github.com — https://github.com/phusion/passenger/commit/4043718264095cde6623c2cbe8c644541036…
- seclists.org — https://seclists.org/bugtraq/2019/Mar/34
- www.debian.org — https://www.debian.org/security/2019/dsa-4415
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