Vulnerability Report

CVE-2005-2959

Title: Incomplete environment blacklist allows privilege escalation in sudo

Auth Bypass

Proof Of Concept

No public PoC currently indexed for CVE-2005-2959.

CWE Category CWE-264

Published Date Oct 25, 2005

Modified Date Jun 16, 2026

Exploit Status Not Found

Score 4.6 CVSS v2.0

Exploit Probability (EPSS)

0.62%

Vulnerability Summary

CVE-2005-2959: Incomplete blacklist vulnerability in sudo 1.6.8 and earlier allows local users to gain privileges via the (1) SHELLOPTS and (2) PS4 environment variables before executing a bash script on behalf of another user, which are not cleared even though other variables are.

Impacted Vendors

todd_miller 1

gratisoft 1

Reference Links

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305214 http://lists.apple.com/archives/security-announce/2007/Mar/msg00002.html http://secunia.com/advisories/17318 http://secunia.com/advisories/17322 http://secunia.com/advisories/17345 http://secunia.com/advisories/17390 http://secunia.com/advisories/17666 http://secunia.com/advisories/18549 http://secunia.com/advisories/24479 http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-870 http://www.mandriva.com/security/advisories?name=MDKSA-2005:201 http://www.novell.com/linux/security/advisories/2006_02_sr.html http://www.openpkg.org/security/OpenPKG-SA-2006.002-sudo.html http://www.securityfocus.com/advisories/9643 http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/15191 http://www.sudo.ws/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=182 http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/techalerts/TA07-072A.html http://www.vupen.com/english/advisories/2007/0930 https://usn.ubuntu.com/213-1/ http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305214 http://lists.apple.com/archives/security-announce/2007/Mar/msg00002.html http://secunia.com/advisories/17318 http://secunia.com/advisories/17322 http://secunia.com/advisories/17345 http://secunia.com/advisories/17390 http://secunia.com/advisories/17666 http://secunia.com/advisories/18549 http://secunia.com/advisories/24479 http://www.debian.org/security/2005/dsa-870 http://www.mandriva.com/security/advisories?name=MDKSA-2005:201 http://www.novell.com/linux/security/advisories/2006_02_sr.html http://www.openpkg.org/security/OpenPKG-SA-2006.002-sudo.html http://www.securityfocus.com/advisories/9643 http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/15191 http://www.sudo.ws/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=182 http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/techalerts/TA07-072A.html http://www.vupen.com/english/advisories/2007/0930 https://usn.ubuntu.com/213-1/

CVSS v2.0

Source Entity [email protected]

Severity MEDIUM

4.6

Access Vector

N/A

Authentication

N/A

RAW VECTOR AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Associated Attack Patterns (CAPEC)

Total: Patterns

CVE-2005-2959 Exploits & PoCs (Proof Of Concept)

No public PoCs found in our database for this CVE.

June 16, 2026 MODIFIED

Vulnerability data updated via NVD.

April 03, 2025 MODIFIED

Vulnerability data or affected products updated.

October 25, 2005 PUBLISHED

Vulnerability first announced in NVD.

Attack Vector Matrix

Access Vector N/A

Complexity N/A

Privileges N/A

Interaction NONE

CVSS Vector String


                                    AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Affected Stack

No specific products linked.