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Fencer Intel
medium 6.9

CVE-2012-3524 json

libdbus 1.5.x and earlier, when used in setuid or other privileged programs in X.org and possibly other products, allows local users to gai…

published 2012-09-18 14 y ago modified 2026-06-16 4 mo ago also EUVD-2012-3479

cvss
6.9
version 2.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
4.5%
EPSS 4.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 91%
public exploits
1
Exploit-DB

Summary

libdbus 1.5.x and earlier, when used in setuid or other privileged programs in X.org and possibly other products, allows local users to gain privileges and execute arbitrary code via the DBUS_SYSTEM_BUS_ADDRESS environment variable. NOTE: libdbus maintainers state that this is a vulnerability in the applications that do not cleanse environment variables, not in libdbus itself: "we do not support use of libdbus in setuid binaries that do not sanitize their environment before their first call into libdbus."

Patch / fix

  • dbus Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 1.6.8-1
  • glib2.0 Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 2.33.12+really2.32.4-2

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2012-3524

  • dbus RHEL 6 1:1.2.24-7.el6_3
  • dbus-x11 RHEL 6 1:1.2.24-7.el6_3
  • dbus-libs RHEL 6 1:1.2.24-7.el6_3

red hat advisories RHSA-2012:1261

  • dbus-1 openSUSE Tumbleweed 1.10.12-2.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:10517-1

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2012-3524 updated cvss 6.9

dbus: privilege escalation when libdbus is used in setuid/setgid application

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop (v. 6) dbus 1.2.24-7.el6_3, dbus-x11 1.2.24-7.el6_3, dbus-libs 1.2.24-7.el6_3 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop Optional (v. 6) dbus 1.2.24-7.el6_3 Red Hat Enterprise Linux HPC Node (v. 6) dbus 1.2.24-7.el6_3, dbus-x11 1.2.24-7.el6_3, dbus-libs 1.2.24-7.el6_3 Red Hat Enterprise Linux HPC Node Optional (v. 6) dbus 1.2.24-7.el6_3 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (v. 6) dbus 1.2.24-7.el6_3, dbus-x11 1.2.24-7.el6_3, dbus-libs 1.2.24-7.el6_3 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server Optional (v. 6) dbus 1.2.24-7.el6_3
    +2 more products
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation (v. 6) dbus 1.2.24-7.el6_3, dbus-x11 1.2.24-7.el6_3, dbus-libs 1.2.24-7.el6_3 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation Optional (v. 6) dbus 1.2.24-7.el6_3
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2012:1261
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 dbus
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Timeline

  1. First public exploit (EDB-21323)
  2. Published

Exploit prediction

4.48% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 91% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

  • EDB-21323 libdbus - 'DBUS_SYSTEM_BUS_ADDRESS' Local Privilege Escalation local, 2012-07-17
  • securityfocus.com http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/55517 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified
  • stealth.openwall.net http://stealth.openwall.net/null/dzug.c referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 2.0 6.9 AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-264 Permissions, Privileges, and Access Controls

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.