# CVE-2019-15901: Privilege escalation in n/a

> An attacker can gain unauthorized privileges because doas fails to set group IDs correctly on Linux and NetBSD platforms.

- **Severity:** High 8.8 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/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:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 18 Oct 2019
- **Updated:** 5 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-87h5-jxx9-3c5x

## What is CVE-2019-15901?

CVE-2019-15901 is a high-severity vulnerability in n/a, published on 18 Oct 2019. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

An issue was discovered in slicer69 doas before 6.2 on certain platforms other than OpenBSD. A setusercontext(3) call with flags to change the UID, primary GID, and secondary GIDs was replaced (on certain platforms: Linux and possibly NetBSD) with a single setuid(2) call. This resulted in neither changing the group id nor initializing secondary group ids.

Weakness: CWE-269 (Improper Privilege Management)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2019-15901?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Doas Project Doas.

## How do I fix CVE-2019-15901?

No fix has been published for CVE-2019-15901 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2019-15901 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2019-15901 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in n/a

- [CVE-2019-15900](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-15900/): Privilege escalation in n/a (critical 9.8)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2019-15901 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2019-15901 is a high-severity vulnerability in n/a, published on 18 Oct 2019. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2019-15901 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-2019-15901/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-15901/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2019-15901
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2019-15901
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2019-15901

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-15901/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.