CVE-2018-6552 | Apport treats the container PID as the global PID when /proc/<global_pid>/ is missing

Apport does not properly handle crashes originating from a PID namespace allowing local users to create certain files as root which an attacker could leverage to perform a denial of service via resource exhaustion, possibly gain root privileges, or escape from containers. The is_same_ns() function returns True when /proc/<global pid>/ does not exist in order to indicate that the crash should be handled in the global namespace rather than inside of a container. However, the portion of the data/apport code that decides whether or not to forward a crash to a container does not always replace sys.argv[1] with the value stored in the host_pid variable when /proc/<global pid>/ does not exist which results in the container pid being used in the global namespace. This flaw affects versions 2.20.8-0ubuntu4 through 2.20.9-0ubuntu7, 2.20.7-0ubuntu3.7, 2.20.7-0ubuntu3.8, 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.15 through 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.17, and 2.14.1-0ubuntu3.28.

Published: 2018-05-31 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2018-6552 is rated Low Risk (32.3/100): CVSS High severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.04%). Mandatory action: Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.

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-2018-6552

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 2023-03-07 0.89% 0.04% -0.84%
2 2022-02-04 0.41% 0.89% +0.47%
3 2021-04-14 0.41%

Full EPSS history (3 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2018-6552

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-2018-6552

OS Trackers for CVE-2018-6552

vendor priority summary link
ubuntu high CVE-2018-6552 high priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (apport), 5 status rows across 5 suites (artful, bionic, trusty, upstream, xenial): released 4, needs-triage 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2018-6552

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2018-6552

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
apport_project apport 2.14.1 cpe:2.3:a:apport_project:apport:2.14.1:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
apport_project apport 2.20.9 cpe:2.3:a:apport_project:apport:2.20.9:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
apport_project apport 2.20.7 cpe:2.3:a:apport_project:apport:2.20.7:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
apport_project apport 2.20.1 cpe:2.3:a:apport_project:apport:2.20.1:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2018-6552

cvelogic Threat Intelligence