CVE-2013-1959

Severity: low (CVSS 3.7 v2.0)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 1.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: yes
Published: 2013-05-03 · updated 2026-06-16
Weakness: CWE-264

Description

kernel/user_namespace.c in the Linux kernel before 3.8.9 does not have appropriate capability requirements for the uid_map and gid_map files, which allows local users to gain privileges by opening a file within an unprivileged process and then modifying the file within a privileged process.

Affected products

Linux kernel: through 3.8.8; 3.0-rc1, 3.0-rc2, 3.0-rc3, 3.0-rc4, 3.0-rc5, 3.0-rc6 (+215)

References

http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git%3Ba=commit%3Bh=6708075f104c3c9b04b23336bb0366ca30c3931b
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git%3Ba=commit%3Bh=e3211c120a85b792978bcb4be7b2886df18d27f0
http://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/25307
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v3.x/ChangeLog-3.8.9
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2013/04/29/1
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/6708075f104c3c9b04b23336bb0366ca30c3931b
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/e3211c120a85b792978bcb4be7b2886df18d27f0
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git%3Ba=commit%3Bh=6708075f104c3c9b04b23336bb0366ca30c3931b
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git%3Ba=commit%3Bh=e3211c120a85b792978bcb4be7b2886df18d27f0
http://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/25307
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v3.x/ChangeLog-3.8.9
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2013/04/29/1

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