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Fencer Intel
low 2.8

CVE-2019-15790 json

Apport reads PID files with elevated privileges

published 6y ago modified 4mo ago also EUVD-2019-6713

cvss
2.8
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 44%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Apport reads and writes information on a crashed process to /proc/pid with elevated privileges. Apport then determines which user the crashed process belongs to by reading /proc/pid through get_pid_info() in data/apport. An unprivileged user could exploit this to read information about a privileged running process by exploiting PID recycling. This information could then be used to obtain ASLR offsets for a process with an existing memory corruption vulnerability. The initial fix introduced regressions in the Python Apport library due to a missing argument in Report.add_proc_environ in apport/report.py. It also caused an autopkgtest failure when reading /proc/pid and with Python 2 compatibility by reading /proc maps. The initial and subsequent regression fixes are in 2.20.11-0ubuntu16, 2.20.11-0ubuntu8.6, 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.12, 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.22 and 2.14.1-0ubuntu3.29+esm3.

Patch / fix

  • Canonical Apport 2.14.1-0ubuntu3.29+esm3, 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.22, 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.12, 2.20.11-0ubuntu8.6, 2.20.11-0ubuntu16
  • 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-2019-15790

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

0.52% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 44% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

  • bugs.launchpad.net https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/apport/+bug/1850929 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified
  • bugs.launchpad.net https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/apport/+bug/1839795 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified
  • bugs.launchpad.net https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/apport/+bug/1851806 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 2.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:N/A:N
NVD 3.1 3.3 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N
NVD 2.0 2.1 AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N

Affected products

  • Canonical Apport

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-250 Execution with Unnecessary Privileges
  • CWE-269 Improper Privilege Management

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.