Race Condition Affecting util-linux package, versions <2.29.2-1
Threat Intelligence
The probability is the direct output of the EPSS model, and conveys an overall sense of the threat of exploitation in the wild. The percentile measures the EPSS probability relative to all known EPSS scores. Note: This data is updated daily, relying on the latest available EPSS model version. Check out the EPSS documentation for more details.
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Test your applications- Snyk IDSNYK-DEBIAN14-UTILLINUX-11771262
- published10 Aug 2025
- disclosed27 Jul 2018
Introduced: 27 Jul 2018
CVE-2017-2616 (opens in a new tab)How to fix?
Upgrade Debian:14 util-linux to version 2.29.2-1 or higher.
NVD Description
Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream util-linux package and not the util-linux package as distributed by Debian.
See How to fix? for Debian:14 relevant fixed versions and status.
A race condition was found in util-linux before 2.32.1 in the way su handled the management of child processes. A local authenticated attacker could use this flaw to kill other processes with root privileges under specific conditions.
References
- https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2017-2616
- https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2017-2616
- https://www.debian.org/security/2017/dsa-3793
- https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/201706-02
- https://github.com/karelzak/util-linux/commit/dffab154d29a288aa171ff50263ecc8f2e14a891
- https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=CVE-2017-2616
- http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2017-0654.html
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2017:0907
- http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/96404
- http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1038271
- http://people.ubuntu.com/~ubuntu-security/cve/CVE-2017-2616