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Fencer Vulns
high 7.8

CVE-2018-15687 json

systemd: chown_one() can dereference symlinks

published 2018-10-26 8 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2018-7557

cvss
7.8
version 3.0, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
1.1%
EPSS 1.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 64%
public exploits
1
Exploit-DB

Summary

A race condition in chown_one() of systemd allows an attacker to cause systemd to set arbitrary permissions on arbitrary files. Affected releases are systemd versions up to and including 239.

Patch / fix

  • systemd_project systemd 240
  • systemd Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 239-11

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2018-15687

  • systemd Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 229-4ubuntu21.8
  • systemd Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 237-3ubuntu10.6

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2018-15687

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

  • systemd openSUSE Tumbleweed 249.4-2.2

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:11420-1

  • systemd Arch Linux 239.300-1

arch linux advisories AVG-789

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-2018-15687 updated cvss 6.3

systemd: Dereference of symlinks in chown_recursive.c:chown_one() allows for modification of file privileges

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 systemd, libgudev1, systemd-libs, systemd-sysv, systemd-python, systemd-networkd, +2 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 systemd, systemd-pam, systemd-libs, systemd-udev, systemd-tests, systemd-container, +1 more Red Hat Virtualization 4 systemd
    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

Timeline

  1. Published
  2. First public exploit (EDB-45715)

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
total
Assessed
17 mo ago

Exploit prediction

1.06% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 64% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • EDB-45715 systemd - 'chown_one()' Dereference Symlinks local, 2018-10-29

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.0 7.8 CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 3.1 7.0 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 6.9 AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

Affected products

  • systemd systemd

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-362 Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization

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.