# CVE-2018-7169: Privilege escalation in n/a

> An unprivileged user can bypass kernel security restrictions to remove themselves from supplementary groups, potentially gaining unauthorized access to restricted filesystem paths.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.3 (`CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 15 Feb 2018
- **Updated:** 5 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2018-7169, GHSA-m2px-jr9v-8hhp, MGASA-2018-0177, SUSE-SU-2018:0662-1, UBUNTU-CVE-2018-7169, openSUSE-SU-2024:11378-1

## What is CVE-2018-7169?

CVE-2018-7169 is a medium-severity vulnerability in n/a, published on 15 Feb 2018. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

An issue was discovered in shadow 4.5. newgidmap (in shadow-utils) is setuid and allows an unprivileged user to be placed in a user namespace where setgroups(2) is permitted. This allows an attacker to remove themselves from a supplementary group, which may allow access to certain filesystem paths if the administrator has used "group blacklisting" (e.g., chmod g-rwx) to restrict access to paths. This flaw effectively reverts a security feature in the kernel (in particular, the /proc/self/setgroups knob) to prevent this sort of privilege escalation.

Weakness: CWE-732 (Incorrect Permission Assignment for Critical Resource)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2018-7169?

It affects 1 product.


| Package | Ecosystem | Affected | Fixed in |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `shadow` | SUSE:Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 SP2 | All versions | 4.2.1-27.6.1 |
| `shadow` | SUSE:Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 SP3 | All versions | 4.2.1-27.6.1 |
| `shadow` | SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP2 | All versions | 4.2.1-27.6.1 |
| `shadow` | SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP3 | All versions | 4.2.1-27.6.1 |
| `shadow` | SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for Raspberry Pi 12 SP2 | All versions | 4.2.1-27.6.1 |
| `shadow` | SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 12 SP2 | All versions | 4.2.1-27.6.1 |
| `shadow` | SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 12 SP3 | All versions | 4.2.1-27.6.1 |
| `shadow` | openSUSE:Tumbleweed | All versions | 4.9-1.1 |

Products: Shadow Project Shadow.

## How do I fix CVE-2018-7169?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2018-7169 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2018-7169 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in n/a

- [CVE-2019-19882](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-19882/): Privilege escalation in n/a (high 7.8)
- [CVE-2016-6252](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2016-6252/): Integer overflow in n/a (high 7.8)
- [CVE-2023-29383](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-29383/): Information disclosure in n/a (low 3.3)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2018-7169 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2018-7169 is a medium-severity vulnerability in n/a, published on 15 Feb 2018. 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-2018-7169 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-2018-7169/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-7169/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2018-7169
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-7169
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2018-7169

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-7169/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.