Skip to content
Fencer Intel
high 7.8

CVE-2017-8422 json

KDE kdelibs before 4.14.32 and KAuth before 5.34 allow local users to gain root privileges by spoofing a callerID and leveraging a privileg…

published 2017-05-17 9 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2017-17373

cvss
7.8
version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
1.8%
EPSS 1.8% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 78%
public exploits
1
Exploit-DB

Summary

KDE kdelibs before 4.14.32 and KAuth before 5.34 allow local users to gain root privileges by spoofing a callerID and leveraging a privileged helper app.

Patch / fix

  • kauth Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 5.28.0-2

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2017-8422

  • kauth Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 5.18.0-0ubuntu2
  • kde4libs Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 4:4.13.3-0ubuntu0.5
  • kde4libs Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 4:4.14.16-0ubuntu3.2

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2017-8422

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

  • kdelibs RHEL 7 6:4.14.8-6.el7_3
  • kdelibs-common RHEL 7 6:4.14.8-6.el7_3
  • kdelibs-apidocs RHEL 7 6:4.14.8-6.el7_3
  • kdelibs-ktexteditor RHEL 7 6:4.14.8-6.el7_3

red hat advisories RHSA-2017:1264

  • kdelibs4 SLES for SAP 12 SP2, SLES for SAP 12 SP1, SLES for Raspberry Pi 12 SP2 +4 more 4.12.0-10.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2017:1335-1

  • kdelibs4 Package Hub 12 SP2, Package Hub 12 SP1 4.14.25-8.2
  • kauth Package Hub 12 SP2, Package Hub 12 SP1 5.26.0-6.1
  • kdelibs4-apidocs Package Hub 12 SP2, Package Hub 12 SP1 4.14.25-8.2

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2017:1254-1openSUSE-SU-2017:1272-1

  • kauth Arch Linux 5.33.0-2

arch linux advisories AVG-269

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-2017-8422 updated cvss 7.8

kauth: service invoking dbus is not properly checked and allows local privilege escalation

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client (v. 7) kdelibs 4.14.8-6.el7_3, kdelibs-common 4.14.8-6.el7_3, kdelibs-ktexteditor 4.14.8-6.el7_3 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client Optional (v. 7) kdelibs-apidocs 4.14.8-6.el7_3 Red Hat Enterprise Linux ComputeNode (v. 7) kdelibs 4.14.8-6.el7_3, kdelibs-common 4.14.8-6.el7_3, kdelibs-ktexteditor 4.14.8-6.el7_3 Red Hat Enterprise Linux ComputeNode Optional (v. 7) kdelibs-apidocs 4.14.8-6.el7_3 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (v. 7) kdelibs 4.14.8-6.el7_3, kdelibs-common 4.14.8-6.el7_3, kdelibs-ktexteditor 4.14.8-6.el7_3 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server Optional (v. 7) kdelibs 4.14.8-6.el7_3, kdelibs-common 4.14.8-6.el7_3, kdelibs-apidocs 4.14.8-6.el7_3, kdelibs-ktexteditor 4.14.8-6.el7_3
    +2 more products
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation (v. 7) kdelibs 4.14.8-6.el7_3, kdelibs-common 4.14.8-6.el7_3, kdelibs-ktexteditor 4.14.8-6.el7_3 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation Optional (v. 7) kdelibs-apidocs 4.14.8-6.el7_3
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2017:1264
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 kdelibs Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 kdelibs, kdelibs3, kdelibs-common, kdelibs-apidocs, kdelibs3-apidocs, kdelibs-experimental Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 kdelibs-experimental
    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. Published
  2. First public exploit (EDB-42053)

Exploit prediction

1.80% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 78% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

  • EDB-42053 KDE 4/5 - 'KAuth' Local Privilege Escalation local, 2017-05-18

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.0 7.8 CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 7.2 AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-290 Authentication Bypass by Spoofing

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.