CVE-2016-1240 Privilege escalation in n/a
Local attackers with tomcat account access can gain root privileges via a symlink attack on the Catalina log file in Tomcat init scripts.
- 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
What is CVE-2016-1240?
CVE-2016-1240 is a high-severity vulnerability in Apache Tomcat, published on 3 Oct 2016. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
The Tomcat init script in the tomcat7 package before 7.0.56-3+deb8u4 and tomcat8 package before 8.0.14-1+deb8u3 on Debian jessie and the tomcat6 and libtomcat6-java packages before 6.0.35-1ubuntu3.8 on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, the tomcat7 and libtomcat7-java packages before 7.0.52-1ubuntu0.7 on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, and tomcat8 and libtomcat8-java packages before 8.0.32-1ubuntu1.2 on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS allows local users with access to the tomcat account to gain root privileges via a symlink attack on the Catalina log file, as demonstrated by /var/log/tomcat7/catalina.out.
Weakness: CWE-20
Which versions are affected by CVE-2016-1240?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Apache Tomcat.
How do I fix CVE-2016-1240?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Is CVE-2016-1240 being exploited?
It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2016-1240 exists.
Public exploit code: 1 Metasploit module, 1 Exploit-DB entry and 2 proofs of concept on GitHub.
Other vulnerabilities in Apache Tomcat
Sources
Also known as DLA-622-1, DLA-623-1, DSA-3669-1, DSA-3670-1, GHSA-8c5c-v572-37xf, UBUNTU-CVE-2016-1240 and 2 more.