snap-confine as included in snapd before 2.39 did not guard against symlink races when performing the chdir() to the current working direct…

published 2019-04-24 7 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2019-3176

cvss: 7.5; version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 2.4%; EPSS 2.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 84%
public exploits: 0; none known

snap-confine as included in snapd before 2.39 did not guard against symlink races when performing the chdir() to the current working directory of the calling user, aka a "cwd restore permission bypass."

Patch / fix

fixed in 1 distros 2 links 2

canonical snapd 2.39

debian ubuntu

snapd Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 2.40-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2019-11503

snapd Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 2.39.2ubuntu0.2
snapd Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 2.39.2+18.04

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2019-11503

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

github.com/snapcore/snapd#6642 pull request
openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2019/04/18/4 advisory

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-2019-11503 updated 2026-01-13 cvss 5.3

snapd: remote attacker able to bypass security restriction

Red Hat All currently supported Red Hat products
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

2.42% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 84% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

openwall.com https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2019/04/18/4 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
NVD	3.0	7.5	CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
NVD	2.0	5.0	AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:N

Classification

Weakness

CWE-59 Improper Link Resolution Before File Access

References

github.com /snapcore/snapd/pull/6642
third-party-advisory
openwall.com /lists/oss-security/2019/04/18/4
exploit, mailing-list, patch, third-party-advisory
lists.fedoraproject.org /archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/6VACEKVQ7UAZ32WO4ZKCFW6YOBSYJ76L/
vendor-advisory
lists.fedoraproject.org /archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/VPU6APEZHAA7N2AI57OT4J2P7NKHFOLM/
vendor-advisory
openwall.com /lists/oss-security/2019/04/25/7
mailing-list, third-party-advisory

Sources

CVE List CVE-2019-11503
NVD CVE-2019-11503

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.

Summary