CVE-2010-4170

Severity: high (CVSS 7.2 v2.0)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 5.8% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: yes
Published: 2010-12-07 · updated 2026-06-16
Weakness: CWE-264

Description

The staprun runtime tool in SystemTap 1.3 does not properly clear the environment before executing modprobe, which allows local users to gain privileges by setting the MODPROBE_OPTIONS environment variable to specify a malicious configuration file.

Affected products

Systemtap: 1.3

References

http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2010-November/051115.html
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2010-November/051122.html
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2010-November/051127.html
http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/152569/SystemTap-1.3-MODPROBE_OPTIONS-Privilege-Escalation.html
http://secunia.com/advisories/42256
http://secunia.com/advisories/42263
http://secunia.com/advisories/42306
http://secunia.com/advisories/42318
http://secunia.com/advisories/46920
http://sources.redhat.com/git/gitweb.cgi?p=systemtap.git%3Ba=commit%3Bh=b7565b41228bea196cefa3a7d43ab67f8f9152e2
http://sources.redhat.com/ml/systemtap/2010-q4/msg00230.html
http://www.debian.org/security/2011/dsa-2348

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