Improper Privilege Management Affecting systemd package, versions <237-1


Severity

Recommended
0.0
medium
0
10

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Threat Intelligence

EPSS
0.3% (22nd percentile)

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  • Snyk IDSNYK-ECHOLATEST-SYSTEMD-18867307
  • published17 Aug 2026
  • disclosed14 Jan 2019

Introduced: 14 Jan 2019

CVE-2018-16888  (opens in a new tab)
CWE-269  (opens in a new tab)

How to fix?

Upgrade Echo:latest systemd to version 237-1 or higher.

NVD Description

Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream systemd package and not the systemd package as distributed by Echo. See How to fix? for Echo:latest relevant fixed versions and status.

It was discovered systemd does not correctly check the content of PIDFile files before using it to kill processes. When a service is run from an unprivileged user (e.g. User field set in the service file), a local attacker who is able to write to the PIDFile of the mentioned service may use this flaw to trick systemd into killing other services and/or privileged processes. Versions before v237 are vulnerable.

CVSS Base Scores

version 3.1