SARA / Free Tools / CVE / CVE-2018-16888

CVE-2018-16888 — It was discovered systemd does not correctly check the content of PIDFile files

It was discovered systemd does not correctly check the content of PIDFile files before using it to kill processes. When a service is run from an unprivileged user (e.g. User field set in the service file), a local attacker who is able to write to the PIDFile of the mentioned serv

CVSS
4.4 MEDIUM
EPSS
0.16% (top 63.60%)
CWE
CWE-250
Published
2019-01-14T22:00:00.000Z
Last modified
2024-08-05T10:39:58.066Z
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

01What is this vulnerability?

It was discovered systemd does not correctly check the content of PIDFile files before using it to kill processes. When a service is run from an unprivileged user (e.g. User field set in the service file), a local attacker who is able to write to the PIDFile of the mentioned service may use this flaw to trick systemd into killing other services and/or privileged processes. Versions before v237…

02Affected products

VendorProductVersions
The systemd Projectsystemdv237

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

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

09References

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