CVE-2019-15790
Apport reads PID files with elevated privileges
- State
- Published
- Severity
- 2.8 Low
- Published
- Apr 27, 2020
- Updated
- Nov 3, 2025
- Reserved
- Aug 29, 2019
Description
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.
Scores
| CVSS | Score | Vector | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3.1 | 2.8 Low | CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:N/A:N | canonical |
Weaknesses
- CWE-250 Execution with Unnecessary Privileges
Affected Products
| Product | Versions |
|---|---|
ApportCanonical |
|
References
- https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/apport/+bug/1839795
- https://usn.ubuntu.com/4171-1/
- https://usn.ubuntu.com/4171-2/
- https://usn.ubuntu.com/4171-3/
- https://usn.ubuntu.com/4171-4/
- https://usn.ubuntu.com/4171-5/
- https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/apport/+bug/1850929
- https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/apport/+bug/1851806
- https://bugs.launchpad.net/apport/+bug/1854237
- http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/172858/Ubuntu-Apport-Whoopsie-DoS-Integer-Overflow.html
- http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2025/Jun/9
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