CVE-2023-26604

Exp

systemd before 247 does not adequately block local privilege escalation for some Sudo configurations, e.g., plausible sudoers files in which the "systemctl status" command may be executed. Specifically, systemd does not set LESSSECURE to 1, and thus other programs may be launched from the less program. This presents a substantial security risk when running systemctl from Sudo, because less executes as root when the terminal size is too small to show the complete systemctl output.

Published: 2023-03-03 Last update: 2025-06-20 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Analyzed，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2023-26604 is rated High Exploit Risk (78.4/100): CVSS High severity, with high exploitation likelihood (EPSS 5.63%, 90th percentile). 2 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-2023-26604

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

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2023-26604

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 2026-03-21 5.01% 5.63% +0.62%
2 2025-12-28 4.72% 5.01% +0.29%
3 2025-11-21 — 4.72% —

Full EPSS history (21 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2023-26604

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
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]
7.8 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 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2023-26604

OS Trackers for CVE-2023-26604

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2023-26604 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (systemd), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2023-26604
redhat medium — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-26604
suse high CVE-2023-26604 severity important: SUSE including 329 source package names (14.2-3.13.134:libsystemd0-246.16-150300.7.60.1, 14.2-3.13.134:libudev1-246.16-150300.7.60.1, …), 885 product×package rows across 76 product lines (Container suse/ltss/sle12.5/sles12sp5, Container suse/sle-micro-rancher/5.2, … (76 product lines)): Known Not Affected 332, Fixed 322, Known Affected 231. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-26604/
ubuntu low CVE-2023-26604 low priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (systemd), 13 status rows across 13 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, kinetic, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): not-affected 8, needs-triage 3, needed 2. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2023-26604

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2023-26604

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
debian debian_linux 10.0 cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:10.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
systemd_project systemd < 246.7 cpe:2.3:a:systemd_project:systemd:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2023-26604

cvelogic Threat Intelligence