UBUNTU-CVE-2017-5899

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    UBUNTU-CVE-2017-5899

    Published: 27 Mar 2017Last Modified: 4 Feb 2026
    Upstream:
    CVE-2017-5899
    Aliases:
    USN-4820-1

    Summary:

    Details: Directory traversal vulnerability in the setuid root helper binary in S-nail (later S-mailx) before 14.8.16 allows local users to write to arbitrary files and consequently gain root privileges via a .. (dot dot) in the randstr argument.

    References: https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2017-5899, https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg00551.html, https://git.sdaoden.eu/cgit/s-nail.git/commit/?id=f797c27efecad45af191c518b7f87fda32ada160, https://git.sdaoden.eu/cgit/s-nail.git/commit/?id=f2699449b66dd702a98925bd1b11153a6f7294bf, https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2017/01/27/7, https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2017-5899, https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-4820-1

    Affected packages

    Package

    Name: s-nail

    Purl: pkg:deb/ubuntu/[email protected]~esm1?arch=source&distro=esm-apps/xenial

    Affected ranges

    Type: ECOSYSTEM

    Events:

    Introduced- 0
    Fixed -14.8.6-1ubuntu0.1~esm1

    Affected versions

    14.8.5-1
    14.8.5-2
    14.8.5-3
    14.8.5-4
    14.8.5-5
    14.8.6-1

    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
    UBUNTU-CVE-2017-5899 | CVE-DB