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    CVE-2016-1240

    The Tomcat init script in the tomcat7 package before 7.0.56-3+deb8u4 and tomcat8 package before 8.0.14-1+deb8u3 on Debian jessie and the tomcat6 and libtomcat6-java packages before 6.0.35-1ubuntu3.8 on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, the tomcat7 and libtomcat7-java packages before 7.0.52-1ubuntu0.7 on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, and tomcat8 and libtomcat8-java packages before 8.0.32-1ubuntu1.2 on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS allows local users with access to the tomcat account to gain root privileges via a symlink attack on the Catalina log file, as demonstrated by /var/log/tomcat7/catalina.out.

    Published:Sep 15, 2016
    Last Modified:Apr 12, 2025
    EPS:Oct 3, 2016
    EPSS Score:0.20656
    CVSS Score:7.8

    Affected Products

    Vendor
    Apache
    Product
    Tomcat
    Vendor
    Canonical
    Product
    Ubuntu Linux
    Vendor
    Debian
    Product
    Debian Linux
    Vendor
    Redhat
    Product
    Jboss Enterprise Web Server

    Exploits

    https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/40450https://github.com/mhe18/CVE_Projecthttps://github.com/Naramsim/Offensive

    Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC)

    CAPEC-10 Buffer Overflow via Environment Variables
    CAPEC-101 Server Side Include (SSI) Injection
    CAPEC-104 Cross Zone Scripting
    CAPEC-108 Command Line Execution through SQL Injection
    CAPEC-109 Object Relational Mapping Injection
    CAPEC-110 SQL Injection through SOAP Parameter Tampering
    CAPEC-120 Double Encoding
    CAPEC-13 Subverting Environment Variable Values
    CAPEC-135 Format String Injection
    CAPEC-136 LDAP Injection
    CAPEC-14 Client-side Injection-induced Buffer Overflow
    CAPEC-153 Input Data Manipulation
    CAPEC-182 Flash Injection
    CAPEC-19 Embedding Scripts within Scripts
    CAPEC-209 XSS Using MIME Type Mismatch
    CAPEC-22 Exploiting Trust in Client
    CAPEC-23 File Content Injection
    CAPEC-230 Serialized Data with Nested Payloads
    CAPEC-231 Oversized Serialized Data Payloads
    CAPEC-24 Filter Failure through Buffer Overflow
    CAPEC-250 XML Injection
    CAPEC-261 Fuzzing for garnering other adjacent user/sensitive data
    CAPEC-267 Leverage Alternate Encoding
    CAPEC-28 Fuzzing
    CAPEC-3 Using Leading 'Ghost' Character Sequences to Bypass Input Filters
    CAPEC-31 Accessing/Intercepting/Modifying HTTP Cookies
    CAPEC-42 MIME Conversion
    CAPEC-43 Exploiting Multiple Input Interpretation Layers
    CAPEC-441 Malicious Logic Insertion
    CAPEC-45 Buffer Overflow via Symbolic Links
    CAPEC-46 Overflow Variables and Tags
    CAPEC-47 Buffer Overflow via Parameter Expansion
    CAPEC-473 Signature Spoof
    CAPEC-478 Modification of Windows Service Configuration
    CAPEC-479 Malicious Root Certificate
    CAPEC-502 Intent Spoof
    CAPEC-503 WebView Exposure
    CAPEC-52 Embedding NULL Bytes
    CAPEC-53 Postfix, Null Terminate, and Backslash
    CAPEC-536 Data Injected During Configuration
    CAPEC-546 Incomplete Data Deletion in a Multi-Tenant Environment
    CAPEC-550 Install New Service
    CAPEC-551 Modify Existing Service
    CAPEC-552 Install Rootkit
    CAPEC-556 Replace File Extension Handlers
    CAPEC-558 Replace Trusted Executable
    CAPEC-562 Modify Shared File
    CAPEC-563 Add Malicious File to Shared Webroot
    CAPEC-564 Run Software at Logon
    CAPEC-578 Disable Security Software
    CAPEC-588 DOM-Based XSS
    CAPEC-63 Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)
    CAPEC-64 Using Slashes and URL Encoding Combined to Bypass Validation Logic
    CAPEC-664 Server Side Request Forgery
    CAPEC-67 String Format Overflow in syslog()
    CAPEC-7 Blind SQL Injection
    CAPEC-71 Using Unicode Encoding to Bypass Validation Logic
    CAPEC-72 URL Encoding
    CAPEC-73 User-Controlled Filename
    CAPEC-78 Using Escaped Slashes in Alternate Encoding
    CAPEC-79 Using Slashes in Alternate Encoding
    CAPEC-8 Buffer Overflow in an API Call
    CAPEC-80 Using UTF-8 Encoding to Bypass Validation Logic
    CAPEC-81 Web Server Logs Tampering
    CAPEC-83 XPath Injection
    CAPEC-85 AJAX Footprinting
    CAPEC-88 OS Command Injection
    CAPEC-9 Buffer Overflow in Local Command-Line Utilities

    Related CVEs

    CVE-2026-73180 (CVSS 6.8) — Insufficient Session Expiration vulnerability in Apache Tomcat meant that if the session ID for an authenticat…
    CVE-2026-68763 (CVSS 7.5) — Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in Apache Tomcat via an allocation leak in the HTTP/2 backlog …
    CVE-2026-68569 (CVSS 8.1) — Improper Authentication vulnerability in Apache Tomcat meant that in some circumstances (e.g. CLIENT-CERT, SPN…
    CVE-2026-68525 (CVSS 9.1) — Incorrect Authorization vulnerability in Apache Tomcat's FORM authentication process allows the bypassing of a…
    CVE-2026-66422 (CVSS 8.1) — Improper Authorization vulnerability in Apache Tomcat cause by security-role-ref definitions being incorrectly…
    CVE-2026-65927 (CVSS 7.5) — Off-by-one Error vulnerability in Apache Tomcat impacting the [N] flag on the rewrite valves causes rewrite pr…
    CVE-2026-65905 (CVSS 9.8) — Authentication Bypass by Capture-replay vulnerability in Apache Tomcat's DIGEST authenticator. If, before wind…
    CVE-2026-65637 (CVSS 9.8) — Improper Input Validation vulnerability in Apache Tomcat due to incomplete fix for CVE-2026-32990. This iss…
    CVE-2026-65183 (CVSS 8.1) — Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) Race Condition vulnerability in Apache Tomcat when creating unix domain soc…
    CVE-2026-65182 (CVSS 9.1) — Improper Access Control, Incorrect Authorization vulnerability in Apache Tomcat leads to security constraint b…

    References

    http://legalhackers.com/advisories/Tomcat-DebPkgs-Root-Privilege-Escalation-Exploit-CVE-2016-1240.html
    http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/170857/Apache-Tomcat-On-Ubuntu-Log-Init-Privilege-Escalation.html
    http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2017-0457.html
    http://www.debian.org/security/2016/dsa-3669
    http://www.debian.org/security/2016/dsa-3670
    http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/539519/100/0/threaded
    http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/93263
    http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1036845
    http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-3081-1
    https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2017:0455
    https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2017:0456
    https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/201705-09
    https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20180731-0002/
    https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/40450/
    http://legalhackers.com/advisories/Tomcat-DebPkgs-Root-Privilege-Escalation-Exploit-CVE-2016-1240.html
    http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/170857/Apache-Tomcat-On-Ubuntu-Log-Init-Privilege-Escalation.html
    http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2017-0457.html
    http://www.debian.org/security/2016/dsa-3669
    http://www.debian.org/security/2016/dsa-3670
    http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/539519/100/0/threaded
    http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/93263
    http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1036845
    http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-3081-1
    https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2017:0455
    https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2017:0456
    https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/201705-09
    https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20180731-0002/
    https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/40450/

    Common Vulnerability Scoring System

    Attack Vector
    Network
    Adjacent
    Local
    Physical
    Privileges Required
    None
    Low
    High
    User Interaction
    None
    Required
    Scope
    Unchanged
    Changed
    Confidentiality
    None
    Low
    High
    Integrity
    None
    Low
    High
    Availability
    None
    Low
    High