CVE-2018-10361

An issue was discovered in KTextEditor 5.34.0 through 5.45.0. Insecure handling of temporary files in the KTextEditor's kauth_ktexteditor_helper service (as utilized in the Kate text editor) can allow other unprivileged users on the local system to gain root privileges. The attack occurs when one user (who has an unprivileged account but is also able to authenticate as root) writes a text file using Kate into a directory owned by a another unprivileged user. The latter unprivileged user conducts a symlink attack to achieve privilege escalation.

Published: 2018-04-25 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2018-10361 is rated Moderate Risk (42.4/100): CVSS High severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.39%). Review affected assets and schedule remediation.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2018-10361

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-06-15 0.04% 0.39% +0.35%
2 2025-03-17 0.05% 0.04% -0.01%
3 2023-04-19 — 0.05% —

Full EPSS history (6 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2018-10361

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.8 3.0 HIGH
CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
 1.8 5.9 [email protected]
7.2 2.0 HIGH
AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C Click to expand
Access vector (AV:L)
Requires local access to the target system.
Access complexity (AC:L)
Exploitation conditions are straightforward and predictable.
Authentication (AU:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:C)
Complete confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:C)
Complete integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:C)
Complete availability impact.
 3.9 10.0 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2018-10361

OS Trackers for CVE-2018-10361

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2018-10361 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (ktexteditor), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2018-10361
ubuntu medium CVE-2018-10361 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (ktexteditor), 20 status rows across 20 suites (artful, bionic, cosmic, disco, eoan, focal, groovy, hirsute, impish, jammy, kinetic, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): not-affected 14, ignored 3, DNE 1, needed 1, released 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2018-10361

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2018-10361

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
kde ktexteditor >= 5.34.0, <= 5.45.0 cpe:2.3:a:kde:ktexteditor:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2018-10361

cvelogic Threat Intelligence