CVE-2018-6791

An issue was discovered in soliduiserver/deviceserviceaction.cpp in KDE Plasma Workspace before 5.12.0. When a vfat thumbdrive that contains `` or $() in its volume label is plugged in and mounted through the device notifier, it's interpreted as a shell command, leading to a possibility of arbitrary command execution. An example of an offending volume label is "$(touch b)" -- this will create a file called b in the home folder.

Published: 2018-02-07 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2018-6791 is rated Moderate Risk (44.6/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.26%). 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-2018-6791

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 2026-03-28 0.21% 0.26% +0.05%
2 2025-11-21 0.41% 0.21% -0.20%
3 2025-11-18 — 0.41% —

Full EPSS history (13 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2018-6791

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
6.8 3.0 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.0/AV:P/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:P)
Hands-on access—USB, keyboard, opening the case—not something you do purely over the wire.
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:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
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.
 0.9 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-2018-6791

OS Trackers for CVE-2018-6791

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2018-6791 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (plasma-workspace), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2018-6791
gentoo normal CVE-2018-6791: 1 GLSA(s) (201803-09), 1 atom(s) (kde-plasma/plasma-workspace); latest impact normal. https://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=CVE-2018-6791
redhat medium — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2018-6791
ubuntu medium CVE-2018-6791 medium priority: Ubuntu including 2 source packages (kde-workspace, plasma-workspace), 14 status rows across 7 suites (artful, bionic, cosmic, disco, trusty, upstream, xenial): DNE 7, not-affected 3, needs-triage 2, released 2. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2018-6791

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2018-6791

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
kde plasma-workspace < 5.12.0 cpe:2.3:a:kde:plasma-workspace:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
debian debian_linux 9.0 cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:9.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2018-6791

cvelogic Threat Intelligence