Vulnerability · Published Aug 14, 2023 · Assigned by mitre
CVE-2023-40303
High 7.8
In plain English
A high-severity security flaw in the inetutils package (Debian). There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.4% (higher than 36% of all known vulnerabilities). Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.
Severity (CVSS NVD)7.8High
Exploit odds (30 days)0.4%top 64.3% of all CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo reportsnot in CISA KEV
Attack toolingNoneno public tooling known
Official description
GNU inetutils before 2.5 may allow privilege escalation because of unchecked return values of set*id() family functions in ftpd, rcp, rlogin, rsh, rshd, and uucpd. This is, for example, relevant if the setuid system call fails when a process is trying to drop privileges before letting an ordinary user control the activities of the process.
Affected packages & fixed versions
| Ecosystem | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian:12 | inetutils | 2:2.4-2+deb12u1 | DEBIAN-CVE-2023-40303 |
| Debian:13 | inetutils | 2:2.4-3 | DEBIAN-CVE-2023-40303 |
| Debian:14 | inetutils | 2:2.4-3 | DEBIAN-CVE-2023-40303 |
| Ubuntu:22.04:LTS | inetutils | 2:2.2-2ubuntu0.1 | USN-6304-1 |
| Ubuntu:22.04:LTS | inetutils | 2:2.2-2ubuntu0.1 | UBUNTU-CVE-2023-40303 |
| Ubuntu:24.04:LTS | inetutils | 2:2.4-3ubuntu1 | UBUNTU-CVE-2023-40303 |
Affected products (as reported)
References
- https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/inetutils.git/commit/?id=e4e65c03f4c11292a3e40ef72ca3f194c8bffdd6
- https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-inetutils/2023-07/msg00000.html
- https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/inetutils/
- [debian-lts-announce] 20231008 [SECURITY] [DLA 3611-1] inetutils security update mailing-list
- [oss-security] 20231230 Re: inetutils ftpd, rcp, rlogin, rsh, rshd, uucpd: Avoid potential privilege escalations by checking set*id() return values mailing-list