CVE-2016-1579: UDM doesn't check for confinement before running post-processing commands

Severity: critical (CVSS 9.8 v3.0)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.8% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2019-04-22 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-264

Description

UDM provides support for running commands after a download is completed, this is currently made use of for click package installation. This functionality was not restricted to unconfined applications. Before UDM version 1.2+16.04.20160408-0ubuntu1 any confined application could make use of the UDM C++ API to run arbitrary commands in an unconfined environment as the phablet user.

Affected products

Ubuntu Download Manager: all versions

References

https://bazaar.launchpad.net/~phablet-team/ubuntu-download-manager/trunk/revision/359
https://bazaar.launchpad.net/~phablet-team/ubuntu-download-manager/trunk/revision/359

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