Vulnerability in GNU Glibc

CVE-2017-16997

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.

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 7.8 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.029 (86.4th percentile), scored .

Low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, but still tracked. 86th percentile — 86.4% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2017-16997: held from 0.027 to 0.029.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.027 · newest: 0.029 · change: +0.002

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

Public proof-of-concept exploits

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2017-16997?
CVE-2017-16997 is a high-severity vulnerability in GNU Glibc, classified under Untrusted Search Path. CVSS score: 7.8/10. Published 2017-12-18.
How severe is CVE-2017-16997?
High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.8 out of 10.
Is CVE-2017-16997 known to be exploited?
3 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.