What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities
CVE-2019-13272: Linux Kernel Improper Privilege Management Vulnerability
- Severity: high (CVSS 7.8 v3.1)
- Exploited in the wild: yes — in CISA KEV since 2021-12-10
- EPSS: 52.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
- Public exploit or detection template: yes
- Published: 2019-07-17 · updated 2026-06-17
Description
In the Linux kernel before 5.1.17, ptrace_link in kernel/ptrace.c mishandles the recording of the credentials of a process that wants to create a ptrace relationship, which allows local users to obtain root access by leveraging certain scenarios with a parent-child process relationship, where a parent drops privileges and calls execve (potentially allowing control by an attacker). One contributing factor is an object lifetime issue (which can also cause a panic). Another contributing factor is incorrect marking of a ptrace relationship as privileged, which is exploitable through (for example) Polkit's pkexec helper with PTRACE_TRACEME. NOTE: SELinux deny_ptrace might be a usable workaround in some environments.
Affected products
- Canonical Ubuntu Linux: 16.04, 18.04, 19.04
- Debian Linux: 8.0, 9.0, 10.0
- Fedoraproject Fedora: 29
- Linux kernel: from 3.16.52 before 3.16.71; from 4.1.39 before 4.2; from 4.4.40 before 4.4.185; from 4.8.16 before 4.9; from 4.9.1 before 4.9.185; from 4.10 before 4.14.133 — fixed in 3.16.71, 4.14.133, 4.19.58, 4.2, 4.4.185, 4.9
- Active IQ Unified Manager for VMware vSphere, Linux, and Microsoft Windows: all versions
- NetApp Aff A700S Firmware: all versions
- NetApp E-Series Performance Analyzer: all versions
- E-Series SANtricity OS Controller Software 11.x: from 11.0.0 through 11.60.3
- NetApp H410C Firmware: all versions
- NetApp H610S Firmware: all versions
- NetApp Hci Compute Node: all versions
- NetApp Hci Management Node: all versions
- NetApp, Inc. NetApp Service Processor: all versions
- NetApp Solidfire: all versions
- NetApp Steelstore Cloud Integrated Storage: all versions
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux: 7.0, 8.0
- RedHat Enterprise Linux For Arm 64: 7.0_aarch64
- RedHat Enterprise Linux For Ibm Z Systems: 7.0_s390x
- RedHat Enterprise Linux For Real Time: 8
- RedHat Enterprise Linux For Real Time For Nfv: 8.0
- RedHat Enterprise Linux For Real Time For Nfv Tus: 8.2, 8.4, 8.6, 8.8
- RedHat Enterprise Linux For Real Time Tus: 8.2, 8.4, 8.6, 8.8
How to fix
Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 3.16.71, 4.14.133, 4.19.58, 4.2. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.
References
- http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/153663/Linux-PTRACE_TRACEME-Broken-Permission-Object-Lifetime-Handling.html
- http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/153702/Slackware-Security-Advisory-Slackware-14.2-kernel-Updates.html
- http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/154245/Kernel-Live-Patch-Security-Notice-LSN-0054-1.html
- http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/154957/Linux-Polkit-pkexec-Helper-PTRACE_TRACEME-Local-Root.html
- http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/156929/Linux-PTRACE_TRACEME-Local-Root.html
- http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/165051/Linux-Kernel-5.1.x-PTRACE_TRACEME-pkexec-Local-Privilege-Escalation.html
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2019:2405
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2019:2411
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2019:2809
- https://bugs.chromium.org/p/project-zero/issues/detail?id=1903
- https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1730895
- https://bugzilla.suse.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1140671
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