CVE-2008-4865

Severity: high (CVSS 7.2 v2.0)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.4% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2008-11-01 · updated 2026-06-16

Description

Untrusted search path vulnerability in valgrind before 3.4.0 allows local users to execute arbitrary programs via a Trojan horse .valgrindrc file in the current working directory, as demonstrated using a malicious --db-command options. NOTE: the severity of this issue has been disputed, but CVE is including this issue because execution of a program from an untrusted directory is a common scenario.

Affected products

Valgrind: through 3.4.0; 1.9.6, 2.0.0, 2.1.0, 2.1.1, 2.2.0, 2.4.1 (+14)

References

http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2009-01/msg00004.html
http://secunia.com/advisories/33568
http://security.gentoo.org/glsa/glsa-200902-03.xml
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_name=200901032045.17604.jseward%40acm.org&forum_name=valgrind-announce
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2008/10/27/4
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2008/10/28/5
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2008/10/29/5
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2008/10/29/9
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2009-01/msg00004.html
http://secunia.com/advisories/33568
http://security.gentoo.org/glsa/glsa-200902-03.xml
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_name=200901032045.17604.jseward%40acm.org&forum_name=valgrind-announce

Get alerted when CVE-2008-4865 or the next vulnerability affects your stack