CVE-2017-16611 Path traversal in n/a

What is CVE-2017-16611?

CVE-2017-16611 is a medium-severity path traversal vulnerability in Canonical Ubuntu Linux, published on 1 Dec 2017. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

In libXfont before 1.5.4 and libXfont2 before 2.0.3, a local attacker can open (but not read) files on the system as root, triggering tape rewinds, watchdogs, or similar mechanisms that can be triggered by opening files.

Weakness: CWE-59

Which versions are affected by CVE-2017-16611?

It affects 3 products.

Products include Canonical Ubuntu Linux, Debian Debian Linux, X Libxfont.

How do I fix CVE-2017-16611?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

Upgrade, and resolve every user-supplied path against an allowed base folder before opening it. More about Path traversal.

Is CVE-2017-16611 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2017-16611 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Canonical Ubuntu Linux

• CVE-2020-11651 SaltStack Salt Authentication Bypass Exploited Critical 9.8
• CVE-2020-7247 OpenSMTPD Remote Code Execution Exploited Critical 9.8
• CVE-2019-16928 Exim Out-of-bounds Write Exploited Critical 9.8
• CVE-2018-6789 Exim Buffer Overflow Exploited Critical 9.8
• CVE-2015-2590 Oracle Java SE and Java SE Embedded Remote Code Execution Exploited Critical 9.8

All Canonical Ubuntu Linux vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as ALPINE-CVE-2017-16611, DEBIAN-CVE-2017-16611, DLA-2901-1, GHSA-vjcj-64vh-89f7, MGASA-2017-0442, UBUNTU-CVE-2017-16611 and 2 more.