Skip to content
Fencer Vulns
high 7.8

CVE-2017-16997 json

elf/dl-load.c in the GNU C Library (aka glibc or libc6) 2.19 through 2.26 mishandles RPATH and RUNPATH containing $ORIGIN for a privileged…

published 2017-12-18 8 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2017-8165

cvss
7.8
version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
2.9%
EPSS 2.9% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 87%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

elf/dl-load.c in the GNU C Library (aka glibc or libc6) 2.19 through 2.26 mishandles RPATH and RUNPATH containing $ORIGIN for a privileged (setuid or AT_SECURE) program, which allows local users to gain privileges via a Trojan horse library in the current working directory, related to the fillin_rpath and decompose_rpath functions. This is associated with misinterpretion of an empty RPATH/RUNPATH token as the "./" directory. NOTE: this configuration of RPATH/RUNPATH for a privileged program is apparently very uncommon; most likely, no such program is shipped with any common Linux distribution.

Patch / fix

  • glibc Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 2.25-6

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2017-16997

  • glibc Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 2.23-0ubuntu10
  • eglibc Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 2.19-0ubuntu6.14

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2017-16997

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

  • glibc RHEL 7 2.17-260.el7
  • nscd RHEL 7 2.17-260.el7
  • glibc-utils RHEL 7 2.17-260.el7
  • glibc-common RHEL 7 2.17-260.el7
  • glibc-debuginfo-common RHEL 7 2.17-260.el7

red hat advisories RHSA-2018:3092

  • glibc SLES for SAP 12 SP3, SLES for SAP 12 SP2, SLES for Raspberry Pi 12 SP2 +6 more 2.22-62.3.4

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2018:0074-1

  • glibc openSUSE Tumbleweed 2.34-1.2

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:10792-1

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-2017-16997 updated cvss 7.8

glibc: Incorrect handling of RPATH in elf/dl-load.c can be used to execute code loaded from arbitrary libraries

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 glibc, compat-glibc Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 nscd, glibc, glibc-utils, compat-glibc, glibc-common Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 compat-glibc
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client (v. 7) nscd 2.17-260.el7, glibc 2.17-260.el7, glibc-utils 2.17-260.el7, glibc-common 2.17-260.el7, glibc-debuginfo-common 2.17-260.el7 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client Optional (v. 7) glibc-debuginfo-common 2.17-260.el7 Red Hat Enterprise Linux ComputeNode (v. 7) nscd 2.17-260.el7, glibc 2.17-260.el7, glibc-utils 2.17-260.el7, glibc-common 2.17-260.el7, glibc-debuginfo-common 2.17-260.el7 Red Hat Enterprise Linux ComputeNode Optional (v. 7) glibc-debuginfo-common 2.17-260.el7 Red Hat Enterprise Linux for ARM and IBM Power LE (POWER9) Server (v. 7) nscd 2.17-260.el7, glibc 2.17-260.el7, glibc-utils 2.17-260.el7, glibc-common 2.17-260.el7, glibc-debuginfo-common 2.17-260.el7 Red Hat Enterprise Linux for ARM and IBM Power LE (POWER9) Server Optional (v. 7) glibc-debuginfo-common 2.17-260.el7
    +4 more products
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (v. 7) nscd 2.17-260.el7, glibc 2.17-260.el7, glibc-utils 2.17-260.el7, glibc-common 2.17-260.el7, glibc-debuginfo-common 2.17-260.el7 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server Optional (v. 7) glibc-debuginfo-common 2.17-260.el7 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation (v. 7) nscd 2.17-260.el7, glibc 2.17-260.el7, glibc-utils 2.17-260.el7, glibc-common 2.17-260.el7, glibc-debuginfo-common 2.17-260.el7 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation Optional (v. 7) glibc-debuginfo-common 2.17-260.el7
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2018:3092
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 nscd, glibc, libnsl, nss_db, nss_hesiod, glibc-utils, +7 more
    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

Exploit prediction

2.90% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 87% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.0 7.8 CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 9.3 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

Affected products

  • n/a glibc 2.19 through 2.26

Classification

Weakness

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.