# CVE-2017-14180: Privilege escalation in Apport

> Local attackers can exploit Apport's PID namespace handling to create root-owned files, leading to privilege escalation or denial of service.

- **Severity:** High 7.8 (`CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H`)
- **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:** 2 Feb 2018
- **Updated:** 3 Nov 2025
- **Also known as:** GHSA-q2pm-6838-p3jm, UBUNTU-CVE-2017-14180

## What is CVE-2017-14180?

CVE-2017-14180 is a high-severity vulnerability in Canonical Ubuntu Linux, published on 2 Feb 2018. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

Apport 2.13 through 2.20.7 does not properly handle crashes originating from a PID namespace allowing local users to create certain files as root which an attacker could leverage to perform a denial of service via resource exhaustion or possibly gain root privileges, a different vulnerability than CVE-2017-14179.

Weakness: CWE-400 (Uncontrolled Resource Consumption)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2017-14180?

It affects 2 products.


Products: Apport Project Apport, Canonical Ubuntu Linux.

## How do I fix CVE-2017-14180?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2017-14180 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2017-14180 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Canonical Ubuntu Linux

- [CVE-2022-28657](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-28657/): Denial of service in Apport (high 7.8)
- [CVE-2018-6552](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-6552/): Apport treats the container PID as the global PID when /proc/<global_pid>/ is missing (high 7.8)
- [CVE-2017-14177](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-14177/): Privilege escalation in Apport (high 7.8)
- [CVE-2017-14179](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-14179/): Privilege escalation in Apport (high 7.8)
- [CVE-2017-10708](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-10708/): Path traversal in n/a (high 7.8)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2017-14180 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2017-14180 is a high-severity vulnerability in Canonical Ubuntu Linux, published on 2 Feb 2018. 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-2017-14180 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Canonical Ubuntu Linux. 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-2017-14180/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-14180/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2017-14180
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2017-14180
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2017-14180

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From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-14180/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.