CVE-2018-7169

Exp

An issue was discovered in shadow 4.5. newgidmap (in shadow-utils) is setuid and allows an unprivileged user to be placed in a user namespace where setgroups(2) is permitted. This allows an attacker to remove themselves from a supplementary group, which may allow access to certain filesystem paths if the administrator has used "group blacklisting" (e.g., chmod g-rwx) to restrict access to paths. This flaw effectively reverts a security feature in the kernel (in particular, the /proc/self/setgroups knob) to prevent this sort of privilege escalation.

Published: 2018-02-15 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2018-7169 is rated High Exploit Risk (63.1/100): CVSS Medium severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 1.62%). 1 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). EPSS rose +1.44% over the last day, indicating growing attacker interest. Public exploits are available—assess exposure, apply mitigations, and prioritize patching.

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

Public exploit references (Exploit-DB) for CVE-2018-7169

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
— nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2018-7169

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 0.18% 1.62% +1.44%
2 2025-07-03 0.29% 0.18% -0.11%
3 2025-03-30 — 0.29% —

Full EPSS history (8 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2018-7169

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
5.3 3.0 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
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:L)
Some sensitive info could get out, but not a total data dump.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 3.9 1.4 [email protected]
5.0 2.0 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N Click to expand
Access vector (AV:N)
Can be exploited remotely over network reachability.
Access complexity (AC:L)
Exploitation conditions are straightforward and predictable.
Authentication (AU:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:P)
Partial confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:N)
No integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:N)
No availability impact.
 10.0 2.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2018-7169

OS Trackers for CVE-2018-7169

vendor priority summary link
alpine medium CVE-2018-7169: 1 source package rows (shadow); 2 state rows across 2 repos (3.22-community, edge-community); fixed 0, open 2. https://security.alpinelinux.org/vuln/CVE-2018-7169
debian low CVE-2018-7169 low priority: Debian including 1 source packages (shadow), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2018-7169
gentoo normal CVE-2018-7169: 1 GLSA(s) (201805-09), 1 atom(s) (sys-apps/shadow); latest impact normal. https://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=CVE-2018-7169
redhat medium — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2018-7169
suse medium CVE-2018-7169 severity moderate: SUSE including 276 source package names (0.9.1:shadow-4.2.1-27.6.1, 1.0.0:shadow-4.2.1-27.6.1, …), 317 product×package rows across 64 product lines (Container caasp/v4/default-http-backend, Container caasp/v4/dnsmasq-nanny, … (64 product lines)): Known Affected 157, Fixed 146, Known Not Affected 14. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2018-7169/
ubuntu low CVE-2018-7169 low priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (shadow), 13 status rows across 13 suites (artful, bionic, cosmic, disco, eoan, focal, groovy, hirsute, impish, jammy, trusty, upstream, xenial): not-affected 5, ignored 4, released 4. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2018-7169

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2018-7169

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
shadow_project shadow 4.5 cpe:2.3:a:shadow_project:shadow:4.5:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2018-7169

URL Tags
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/shadow/+bug/1729357 Exploit Issue Tracking Third Party Advisory
https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/201805-09 Third Party Advisory
cvelogic Threat Intelligence