CVE-2018-16888 Privilege escalation in systemd
A local attacker can trick systemd into killing privileged processes by manipulating PID files of unprivileged services, leading to privilege escalation or denial of service.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Any signed-in user
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- A user has to click or open something
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2018-16888?
CVE-2018-16888 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Canonical Ubuntu Linux, published on 14 Jan 2019. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.
Official description
It was discovered systemd does not correctly check the content of PIDFile files before using it to kill processes. When a service is run from an unprivileged user (e.g. User field set in the service file), a local attacker who is able to write to the PIDFile of the mentioned service may use this flaw to trick systemd into killing other services and/or privileged processes. Versions before v237 are vulnerable.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2018-16888?
It affects 5 products.
Products include Canonical Ubuntu Linux, Netapp Active Iq Performance Analytics Services, Netapp Element Software, Redhat Enterprise Linux, Systemd Project Systemd.
How do I fix CVE-2018-16888?
Upgrade to a fixed version.
Is CVE-2018-16888 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2018-16888 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Canonical Ubuntu Linux
Sources
Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2018-16888, GHSA-34mm-3fgq-qjxq, UBUNTU-CVE-2018-16888.