Vulnerability Report

CVE-2008-5394

Title: Debian Shadow

Other

Proof Of Concept

PoC Available for CVE-2008-5394

CWE Category CWE-59

Published Date Dec 09, 2008

Modified Date Jun 16, 2026

Exploit Status Available

Score 7.2 CVSS v2.0

Exploit Probability (EPSS)

0.95%

Vulnerability Summary

CVE-2008-5394: /bin/login in shadow 4.0.18.1 in Debian GNU/Linux, and probably other Linux distributions, allows local users in the utmp group to overwrite arbitrary files via a symlink attack on a temporary file referenced in a line (aka ut_line) field in a utmp entry.

Impacted Vendors

debian 1

shadow_project 1

blade-group 1

Reference Links

http://bugs.debian.org/332198 http://bugs.debian.org/505071 http://bugs.debian.org/505271 http://osvdb.org/52200 http://security.gentoo.org/glsa/glsa-200903-24.xml http://securityreason.com/securityalert/4695 http://www.mandriva.com/security/advisories?name=MDVSA-2009:062 http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/498769/100/0/threaded http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/32552 http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-695-1 https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/47037 https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/7313 http://bugs.debian.org/332198 http://bugs.debian.org/505071 http://bugs.debian.org/505271 http://osvdb.org/52200 http://security.gentoo.org/glsa/glsa-200903-24.xml http://securityreason.com/securityalert/4695 http://www.mandriva.com/security/advisories?name=MDVSA-2009:062 http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/498769/100/0/threaded http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/32552 http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-695-1 https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/47037 https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/7313

CVSS v2.0

Source Entity [email protected]

Severity HIGH

7.2

Access Vector

N/A

Authentication

N/A

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

Associated Attack Patterns (CAPEC)

Total: Patterns

CVE-2008-5394 Exploits & PoCs (Proof Of Concept)

Exploit-DB https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/7313

View Code

June 16, 2026 MODIFIED

Vulnerability data updated via NVD.

April 09, 2025 MODIFIED

Vulnerability data or affected products updated.

December 09, 2008 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:C/I:C/A:C

Affected Stack

No specific products linked.