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Fencer Intel
low 3.8

CVE-2019-11481 json

Apport reads arbitrary files if ~/.config/apport/settings is a symlink

published 6y ago modified 4mo ago also EUVD-2019-3154

cvss
3.8
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.5%
EPSS 0.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 39%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Kevin Backhouse discovered that apport would read a user-supplied configuration file with elevated privileges. By replacing the file with a symbolic link, a user could get apport to read any file on the system as root, with unknown consequences.

Patch / fix

  • Canonical apport 2.14.1-0ubuntu3.29+esm2, 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.20, 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.8, 2.20.11-0ubuntu8.1
  • apport Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.20
  • apport Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.8
  • apport Ubuntu Pro 14.04 LTS 2.14.1-0ubuntu3.29+esm2

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2019-11481

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

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Exploit prediction

0.45% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 39% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 3.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:N/A:N
NVD 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 6.1 AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:P/A:P

Affected products

  • Canonical apport

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-59 Improper Link Resolution Before File Access

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.