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Fencer Intel
medium 4.6

CVE-2014-8989 json

The Linux kernel through 3.17.4 does not properly restrict dropping of supplemental group memberships in certain namespace scenarios, which…

published 2014-11-30 11 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2014-8816

cvss
4.6
version 2.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.5%
EPSS 0.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 42%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

The Linux kernel through 3.17.4 does not properly restrict dropping of supplemental group memberships in certain namespace scenarios, which allows local users to bypass intended file permissions by leveraging a POSIX ACL containing an entry for the group category that is more restrictive than the entry for the other category, aka a "negative groups" issue, related to kernel/groups.c, kernel/uid16.c, and kernel/user_namespace.c.

Patch / fix

  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 3.16.7-ckt4-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2014-8989

  • linux Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 3.13.0-46.75
  • linux-lts-utopic Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 3.16.0-31.41~14.04.1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2014-8989

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

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-2014-8989 updated cvss 3.6

kernel: Linux user namespaces can bypass group-based restrictions

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 kernel Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-tools, +3 more Red Hat Enterprise MRG 2 kernel
    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

Exploit prediction

0.50% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 42% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

  • thread.gmane.org http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.man/7385/ referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 2.0 4.6 AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Classification

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

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.