# CVE-2012-2653: Privilege escalation in n/a

> Attackers can gain root privileges by leveraging other vulnerabilities in the arpwatch daemon due to improper dropping of supplementary groups.

- **Severity:** Critical 10.0 (`AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 12 Jul 2012
- **Updated:** 6 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2012-2653, DSA-2481-1, GHSA-f5c6-h372-fcmp

## What is CVE-2012-2653?

CVE-2012-2653 is a critical vulnerability in n/a, published on 12 Jul 2012. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

arpwatch 2.1a15, as used by Red Hat, Debian, Fedora, and possibly others, does not properly drop supplementary groups, which might allow attackers to gain root privileges by leveraging other vulnerabilities in the daemon.

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2012-2653?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Arpwatch.

## How do I fix CVE-2012-2653?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2012-2653 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2012-2653 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2012-2653 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2012-2653 is a critical vulnerability in n/a, published on 12 Jul 2012. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2012-2653 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-2012-2653/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2012-2653/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2012-2653
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2012-2653
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2012-2653

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From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2012-2653/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.