CVE-2008-5394

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Summary

CVECVE-2008-5394
StatePUBLISHED
Assignermitre
Source PriorityCVE Program / NVD first with legacy fallback
Published2008-12-09 00:30:00 UTC
Updated2026-04-23 00:35:47 UTC
Description/bin/login in shadow 4.0.18.1 in Debian GNU/Linux, and probably other Linux distributions, allows local users in the utmp group to overwrite arbitrary files via a symlink attack on a temporary file referenced in a line (aka ut_line) field in a utmp entry.

Risk And Classification

Primary CVSS: v2.0 7.2 from [email protected]

AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

Problem Types: CWE-59 | n/a

CVSS v2.0 Breakdown

Access Vector
Local
Access Complexity
Low
Authentication
None
Confidentiality
Complete
Integrity
Complete
Availability
Complete

AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

NVD Known Affected Configurations (CPE 2.3)

TypeVendorProductVersionUpdateEditionLanguage
Application Debian Shadow 4.0.18.1 All All All

Vendor Declared Affected Products

SourceVendorProductVersionPlatforms
CNA Na N/a affected n/a Not specified

References

ReferenceSourceLinkTags
IBM X-Force Exchange af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108 exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com
#332198 - login: unable to determine TTY name, got /dev/pts/1 - Debian Bug report logs af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108 bugs.debian.org
#505271 - symlink attack in login leading to arbitrary file ownership - Debian Bug report logs af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108 bugs.debian.org
Debian GNU/Linux (symlink attack in login) Arbitrary File Ownership PoC af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108 www.exploit-db.com
USN-695-1: shadow vulnerability | Ubuntu af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108 www.ubuntu.com
SecurityFocus af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108 www.securityfocus.com
Multiple Linux Distributions 'login' Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108 www.securityfocus.com
/bin/login gives root to group utmp - CXSecurity.com af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108 securityreason.com
Support / Security / Advisories / / MDVSA-2009:062 | Mandriva af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108 www.mandriva.com
osvdb.org/52200 af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108 osvdb.org
Gentoo Linux Documentation -- Shadow: Privilege escalation af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108 security.gentoo.org
#505071 - login tty mis-determination (see bug#332198) - Debian Bug report logs af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108 bugs.debian.org
CVE Program record CVE.ORG www.cve.org canonical
NVD vulnerability detail NVD nvd.nist.gov canonical, analysis

Vendor Comments And Credit

OrganizationPublishedContributorStatement
Red Hat2008-12-18Tomas HogerNot vulnerable. This issue did not affect the versions of the util-linux packages (providing /bin/login), as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1, 3, 4 or 5.

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