Servers and applications
CVE-2017-16997
elf/dl-load.c in the GNU C Library (aka glibc or libc6) 2.19 through 2.26 mishandles RPATH and RUNPATH containing $ORIGIN for a privileged (setuid or AT_SECURE) program, which allows local users to gain privileges via a Trojan horse library in the current working directory, related to the fillin_rpath and decompose_rpath functions. This is associated with misinterpretion of an empty…
- Severity
- High 7.8
- Published
- 18 Dec 2017
- Last changed
- 17 Jun 2026
- Added to UpHeron
- 1 Nov 2026
- Exploit chance
- 2.9% in the next 30 daysHigher than 87% of CVEs. EPSS by FIRST, 11 Nov 2026
- Weakness
- CWE-426
- Attack
- Needs local access · No login needed · Needs someone to click or open something
- Attacker can
- Read data · Change data · Take it down
- CVSS vector
CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H- Sources
- NVD
Description
elf/dl-load.c in the GNU C Library (aka glibc or libc6) 2.19 through 2.26 mishandles RPATH and RUNPATH containing $ORIGIN for a privileged (setuid or AT_SECURE) program, which allows local users to gain privileges via a Trojan horse library in the current working directory, related to the fillin_rpath and decompose_rpath functions. This is associated with misinterpretion of an empty RPATH/RUNPATH token as the "./" directory. NOTE: this configuration of RPATH/RUNPATH for a privileged program is apparently very uncommon; most likely, no such program is shipped with any common Linux distribution.
Affected software
| Software | Affected versions |
|---|---|
GNU C LibraryServers and applications · cpe:a:gnu:glibc |
All 7 release lines
|