CVE-2019-3842

Publication date 8 April 2019

Last updated 25 August 2025

Ubuntu priority

Medium

Why this priority?

Cvss 3 Severity Score

7.0 · High

Score breakdown

Description

In systemd before v242-rc4, it was discovered that pam_systemd does not properly sanitize the environment before using the XDG_SEAT variable. It is possible for an attacker, in some particular configurations, to set a XDG_SEAT environment variable which allows for commands to be checked against polkit policies using the "allow_active" element rather than "allow_any".

Status

Package Ubuntu Release Status
systemd 18.10 cosmic
Fixed 239-7ubuntu10.12
18.04 LTS bionic
Fixed 237-3ubuntu10.19
16.04 LTS xenial
Fixed 229-4ubuntu21.21
14.04 LTS trusty
Fixed 204-5ubuntu20.31

Patch details

For informational purposes only. We recommend not to cherry-pick updates. How can I get the fixes?

Package Patch details
systemd

Severity score breakdown

Parameter Value
Base score 7.0 · High
Attack vector Local
Attack complexity High
Privileges required Low
User interaction None
Scope Unchanged
Confidentiality High
Integrity impact High
Availability impact High
Vector CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

References

Related Ubuntu Security Notices (USN)

Other references