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Fencer Vulns
low 2.1

CVE-2004-0233 json

Utempter allows device names that contain .. (dot dot) directory traversal sequences, which allows local users to overwrite arbitrary files…

published 2004-05-05 22 y ago modified 2026-06-16 4 mo ago also EUVD-2004-0233

cvss
2.1
version 2.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
1.1%
EPSS 1.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 65%
public exploits
1
Exploit-DB

Summary

Utempter allows device names that contain .. (dot dot) directory traversal sequences, which allows local users to overwrite arbitrary files via a symlink attack on device names in combination with an application that trusts the utmp or wtmp files.

Patch / fix

  • utempter RHEL 3 0.5.5-1.3EL.0

red hat advisories RHSA-2004:174

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-2004-0233 updated

security flaw

  • Red Hat Desktop version 3 utempter 0.5.5-1.3EL.0 Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS version 3 utempter 0.5.5-1.3EL.0 Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES version 3 utempter 0.5.5-1.3EL.0 Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS version 3 utempter 0.5.5-1.3EL.0
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2004:174
  • Red Hat Linux 9
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2004:175

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. First public exploit (EDB-24027)
  2. Published

Exploit prediction

1.09% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 65% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • EDB-24027 UTempter 0.5.x - Multiple Local Vulnerabilities local, 2004-04-19
  • securityfocus.com http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/10178 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 2.0 2.1 AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:N

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns 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.