# CVE-2019-19882: Privilege escalation in n/a

> Local attackers can escalate privileges to root via misconfigured setuid account management tools in shadow utilities on specific Linux distributions.

- **Severity:** High 7.8 (`CVSS:3.1/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:** 18 Dec 2019
- **Updated:** 5 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2019-19882, GHSA-x9jp-6hm9-x2xg

## What is CVE-2019-19882?

CVE-2019-19882 is a high-severity vulnerability in n/a, published on 18 Dec 2019. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

shadow 4.8, in certain circumstances affecting at least Gentoo, Arch Linux, and Void Linux, allows local users to obtain root access because setuid programs are misconfigured. Specifically, this affects shadow 4.8 when compiled using --with-libpam but without explicitly passing --disable-account-tools-setuid, and without a PAM configuration suitable for use with setuid account management tools. This combination leads to account management tools (groupadd, groupdel, groupmod, useradd, userdel, usermod) that can easily be used by unprivileged local users to escalate privileges to root in multiple ways. This issue became much more relevant in approximately December 2019 when an unrelated bug was fixed (i.e., the chmod calls to suidusbins were fixed in the upstream Makefile which is now included in the release version 4.8).

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

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2019-19882?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Shadow Project Shadow.

## How do I fix CVE-2019-19882?

Change a configuration setting.

## Is CVE-2019-19882 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2019-19882 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in n/a

- [CVE-2016-6252](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2016-6252/): Integer overflow in n/a (high 7.8)
- [CVE-2018-7169](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-7169/): Privilege escalation in n/a (medium 5.3)
- [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-2019-19882 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2019-19882 is a high-severity vulnerability in n/a, published on 18 Dec 2019. 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-2019-19882 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-2019-19882/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-19882/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2019-19882
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2019-19882
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2019-19882

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-19882/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.