# CVE-2011-1784: Privilege escalation in n/a

> Local attackers can kill arbitrary processes by writing PIDs to world-writable keepalived PID files, leading to privilege escalation or denial of service.

- **Severity:** Low 3.6 (`AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:P`)
- **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:** 20 May 2011
- **Updated:** 6 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2011-1784, GHSA-xjrv-p75r-gqqr

## What is CVE-2011-1784?

CVE-2011-1784 is a low-severity vulnerability in n/a, published on 20 May 2011. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

The pidfile_write function in core/pidfile.c in keepalived 1.2.2 and earlier uses 0666 permissions for the (1) keepalived.pid, (2) checkers.pid, and (3) vrrp.pid files in /var/run/, which allows local users to kill arbitrary processes by writing a PID to one of these files.

Weakness: CWE-264

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2011-1784?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Keepalived Keepalived.

## How do I fix CVE-2011-1784?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

## Is CVE-2011-1784 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2011-1784 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in n/a

- [CVE-2018-19045](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-19045/): Information disclosure in n/a (high 7.5)
- [CVE-2018-19044](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-19044/): Path traversal in n/a (medium 4.7)
- [CVE-2018-19046](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-19046/): Information disclosure in n/a (medium 4.7)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2011-1784 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2011-1784 is a low-severity vulnerability in n/a, published on 20 May 2011. 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-2011-1784 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-2011-1784/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2011-1784/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2011-1784
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2011-1784
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2011-1784

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2011-1784/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.