# CVE-2019-7307: Apport contains a TOCTTOU vulnerability when reading the users ~/.apport-ignore.xml

> A local attacker can exploit a race condition in Apport to read arbitrary files via symlink attacks on crash reports.

- **Severity:** Medium 6.5 (`CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N`)
- **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:** 29 Aug 2019
- **Updated:** 16 Sep 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-75vh-qgvc-r573, UBUNTU-CVE-2019-7307, USN-4051-1, USN-4051-2

## What is CVE-2019-7307?

CVE-2019-7307 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Ubuntu apport, published on 29 Aug 2019. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

Apport before versions 2.14.1-0ubuntu3.29+esm1, 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.19, 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.7, 2.20.10-0ubuntu27.1, 2.20.11-0ubuntu5 contained a TOCTTOU vulnerability when reading the users ~/.apport-ignore.xml file, which allows a local attacker to replace this file with a symlink to any other file on the system and so cause Apport to include the contents of this other file in the resulting crash report. The crash report could then be read by that user either by causing it to be uploaded and reported to Launchpad, or by leveraging some other vulnerability to read the resulting crash report, and so allow the user to read arbitrary files on the system.

Weakness: CWE-367 (Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) Race Condition)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2019-7307?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Apport Project Apport.

## How do I fix CVE-2019-7307?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2019-7307 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2019-7307 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Ubuntu apport

- [CVE-2022-28657](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-28657/): Denial of service in Apport (high 7.8)
- [CVE-2018-6552](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-6552/): Apport treats the container PID as the global PID when /proc/<global_pid>/ is missing (high 7.8)
- [CVE-2017-14177](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-14177/): Privilege escalation in Apport (high 7.8)
- [CVE-2017-14179](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-14179/): Privilege escalation in Apport (high 7.8)
- [CVE-2017-14180](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-14180/): Privilege escalation in Apport (high 7.8)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2019-7307 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2019-7307 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Ubuntu apport, published on 29 Aug 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-2019-7307 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Ubuntu apport. 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-2019-7307/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-7307/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2019-7307
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2019-7307
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2019-7307

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-7307/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.