CVE-2024-35235 | Cupsd Listen arbitrary chmod 0140777

Exp

OpenPrinting CUPS is an open source printing system for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. In versions 2.4.8 and earlier, when starting the cupsd server with a Listen configuration item pointing to a symbolic link, the cupsd process can be caused to perform an arbitrary chmod of the provided argument, providing world-writable access to the target. Given that cupsd is often running as root, this can result in the change of permission of any user or system files to be world writable. Given the aforementioned Ubuntu AppArmor context, on such systems this vulnerability is limited to those files modifiable by the cupsd process. In that specific case it was found to be possible to turn the configuration of the Listen argument into full control over the cupsd.conf and cups-files.conf configuration files. By later setting the User and Group arguments in cups-files.conf, and printing with a printer configured by PPD with a `FoomaticRIPCommandLine` argument, arbitrary user and group (not root) command execution could be achieved, which can further be used on Ubuntu systems to achieve full root command execution. Commit ff1f8a623e090dee8a8aadf12a6a4b25efac143d contains a patch for the issue.

Published: 2024-06-11 Last update: 2025-09-26 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2024-35235 is rated High Exploit Risk (62.6/100): CVSS Medium severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 3.10%). Core evidence: 2 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). Mandatory action: 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-2024-35235

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-2024-35235

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 2026-01-04 3.36% 3.10% -0.26%
2 2025-10-31 2.50% 3.36% +0.86%
3 2025-10-17 2.50%

Full EPSS history (23 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2024-35235

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
4.4 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/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:H)
They need powerful rights—admin, root, or similar—before this pays off.
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:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
0.8 3.6 [email protected]
6.7 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/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:H)
They need powerful rights—admin, root, or similar—before this pays off.
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.
0.8 5.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2024-35235

OS Trackers for CVE-2024-35235

vendor priority summary link
alpine CVE-2024-35235: 1 source package rows (cups); 56 state rows across 7 repos (3.17-main, 3.18-main, 3.19-main, 3.20-main, 3.21-main, 3.22-main, edge-main); fixed 7, open 49. https://security.alpinelinux.org/vuln/CVE-2024-35235
debian not yet assigned CVE-2024-35235 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (cups), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2024-35235
redhat medium https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2024-35235
suse high CVE-2024-35235 severity important: SUSE including 300 source package names (6.0-baremetal:glibc-2.38-slfo.1.1_4.1, 6.0-base:glibc-2.38-slfo.1.1_4.1, …), 905 product×package rows across 241 product lines (Container rancher/elemental-channel/sl-micro, Container suse/kiosk/firefox-esr, … (241 product lines)): Fixed 705, Known Affected 200. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2024-35235/
ubuntu medium CVE-2024-35235 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (cups), 7 status rows across 7 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, mantic, noble, upstream, xenial): released 7. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2024-35235

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2024-35235

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
openprinting cups <= 2.4.8 cpe:2.3:a:openprinting:cups:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
debian debian_linux 10.0 cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:10.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2024-35235

URL Tags
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2024/06/11/1 Exploit Mailing List Third Party Advisory
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2024/06/12/4 Mailing List
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2024/06/12/5 Mailing List
https://git.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/apparmor/tree/profiles/apparmor.d/abstractions/user-tmp#n21 Product
https://github.com/OpenPrinting/cups/blob/aba917003c8de55e5bf85010f0ecf1f1ddd1408e/cups/http-addr.c#L229-L240 Product
https://github.com/OpenPrinting/cups/commit/ff1f8a623e090dee8a8aadf12a6a4b25efac143d Patch
https://github.com/OpenPrinting/cups/security/advisories/GHSA-vvwp-mv6j-hw6f Exploit Vendor Advisory
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2024/06/msg00001.html Mailing List
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2024/11/08/3 Mailing List
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