CVE-2016-1255

Severity: high (CVSS 7.8 v3.0)
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: 2017-12-05 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-59

Description

The pg_ctlcluster script in postgresql-common package in Debian wheezy before 134wheezy5, in Debian jessie before 165+deb8u2, in Debian unstable before 178, in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS before 129ubuntu1.2, in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS before 154ubuntu1.1, in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS before 173ubuntu0.1, in Ubuntu 17.04 before 179ubuntu0.1, and in Ubuntu 17.10 before 184ubuntu1.1 allows local users to gain root privileges via a symlink attack on a logfile in /var/log/postgresql.

Affected products

Debian Postgresql-Common: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 (+178)

References

http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-3476-1
http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-3476-2
https://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/pkg-postgresql/postgresql-common.git/commit/?id=c8989206ec360f199400c74f129f7b4cb878c1ee
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2017/01/msg00002.html
http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-3476-1
http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-3476-2
https://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/pkg-postgresql/postgresql-common.git/commit/?id=c8989206ec360f199400c74f129f7b4cb878c1ee
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2017/01/msg00002.html

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