What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2019-3466

• Severity: high (CVSS 7.8 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.5% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: yes
• Published: 2019-11-20 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-269

Description

The pg_ctlcluster script in postgresql-common in versions prior to 210 didn't drop privileges when creating socket/statistics temporary directories, which could result in local privilege escalation.

Affected products

• Canonical Ubuntu Linux: 16.04, 18.04, 19.04, 19.10
• Debian Linux: 9.0, 10.0
• Postgresql-Common: before 210 — fixed in 210

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Postgresql-Common 210. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://blog.mirch.io/2019/11/15/cve-2019-3466-debian-ubuntu-pg_ctlcluster-privilege-escalation/
• https://usn.ubuntu.com/4194-2/
• https://blog.mirch.io/2019/11/15/cve-2019-3466-debian-ubuntu-pg_ctlcluster-privilege-escalation/
• https://usn.ubuntu.com/4194-2/

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