# CVE-2006-4447: Privilege escalation in n/a

> Local attackers can gain elevated privileges by causing setuid calls to fail in X.Org components due to unchecked return values.

- **Severity:** High 7.2 (`AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 30 Aug 2006
- **Updated:** 7 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2006-4447, GHSA-3cp9-g7w3-6jqq

## What is CVE-2006-4447?

CVE-2006-4447 is a high-severity vulnerability in n/a, published on 30 Aug 2006. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

X.Org and XFree86, including libX11, xdm, xf86dga, xinit, xload, xtrans, and xterm, does not check the return values for setuid and seteuid calls when attempting to drop privileges, which might allow local users to gain privileges by causing those calls to fail, such as by exceeding a ulimit.

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2006-4447?

It affects 9 products.


Products: X.org Emu-Linux-X87-Xlibs, X.org X11r6, X.org X11r7, X.org Xdm, X.org Xf86dga, X.org Xinit, X.org Xload, X.org Xorg-Server, X.org Xterm.

## How do I fix CVE-2006-4447?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2006-4447 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2006-4447 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2006-4447 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2006-4447 is a high-severity vulnerability in n/a, published on 30 Aug 2006. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2006-4447 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: n/a. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2006-4447/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2006-4447/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2006-4447
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2006-4447
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2006-4447

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2006-4447/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.