CVE-2019-19882
shadow 4.8, in certain circumstances affecting at least Gentoo, Arch Linux, and Void Linux, allows local users to obtain root access…
- Published
- Updated
- Reserved
- Assigned by
- mitre
Description
shadow 4.8, in certain circumstances affecting at least Gentoo, Arch Linux, and Void Linux, allows local users to obtain root access because setuid programs are misconfigured. Specifically, this affects shadow 4.8 when compiled using --with-libpam but without explicitly passing --disable-account-tools-setuid, and without a PAM configuration suitable for use with setuid account management tools. This combination leads to account management tools (groupadd, groupdel, groupmod, useradd, userdel, usermod) that can easily be used by unprivileged local users to escalate privileges to root in multiple ways. This issue became much more relevant in approximately December 2019 when an unrelated bug was fixed (i.e., the chmod calls to suidusbins were fixed in the upstream Makefile which is now included in the release version 4.8).
Timeline
ID reserved
By mitre
Published
- 5 years later
· 5 years later
Record updated
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| NVDNVD · Modified | 3.1 | High7.8 | CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 0.52% · top 56% of all CVEs (7 Nov 2026)
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: High 7.8.
Weakness
Affected products
n/a
- affected n/a
References (6)
- https://github.com/shadow-maint/shadow/commit/edf7547ad5aa650be868cf2dac58944773c12d75 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISCx_transferred
- https://github.com/shadow-maint/shadow/pull/199 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISCx_transferred
- https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/64836 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISCx_transferred
- https://bugs.gentoo.org/702252 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISCx_transferred
- https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/pull/17580 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISCx_transferred
- GLSA-202008-09 (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryx_refsource_GENTOOx_transferred
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisories (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://trackcve.app/cve/CVE-2019-19882)Record last updated .