CVE-2019-3691 | Local privilege escalation from user munge to root

Exp

A Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following vulnerability in the packaging of munge in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15; openSUSE Factory allowed local attackers to escalate privileges from user munge to root. This issue affects: SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 munge versions prior to 0.5.13-4.3.1. openSUSE Factory munge versions prior to 0.5.13-6.1.

Published: 2020-01-23 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2019-3691 is rated Exploit Available (58.4/100): CVSS High severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.15%). 1 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). 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-2019-3691

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

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2019-3691

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 2025-11-21 0.03% 0.15% +0.11%
2 2025-11-18 0.15% 0.03% -0.11%
3 2025-05-03 — 0.15% —

Full EPSS history (10 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2019-3691

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.7 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N 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: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:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 2.5 5.2 [email protected]
7.8 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/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-2019-3691

OS Trackers for CVE-2019-3691

vendor priority summary link
suse medium CVE-2019-3691 severity moderate: SUSE including 21 source package names (libmunge2-0.5.13-4.3.1, libmunge2-0.5.13-lp151.4.3.1, …), 30 product×package rows across 8 product lines (SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for HPC 12, SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for HPC 15, … (8 product lines)): Fixed 30. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2019-3691/

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2019-3691

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
opensuse munge < 0.5.13-4.3.1 cpe:2.3:a:opensuse:munge:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
opensuse munge < 0.5.13-6.1 cpe:2.3:a:opensuse:munge:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2019-3691

URL Tags
https://bugzilla.suse.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1155075 Exploit Issue Tracking Vendor Advisory
cvelogic Threat Intelligence