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CVE-2019-13272

High CVSS 7.8 Known exploited

Published 2019-07-17 · last changed 2026-06-17 · added to CISA KEV 2021-12-10

This one is being exploited in the wild.

CISA added CVE-2019-13272 to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2021-12-10. Federal agencies are required to remediate it on a deadline. If you have affected machines, this is the class of finding that moves ahead of the rest of the queue.

The fix

We hold no Microsoft remediation data for CVE-2019-13272, which normally means it is not a Windows CVE. For non-Microsoft software the fix is the vendor's own updated release, and the affected versions are listed below.

What it is

In the Linux kernel before 5.1.17, ptrace_link in kernel/ptrace.c mishandles the recording of the credentials of a process that wants to create a ptrace relationship, which allows local users to obtain root access by leveraging certain scenarios with a parent-child process relationship, where a parent drops privileges and calls execve (potentially allowing control by an attacker). One contributing factor is an object lifetime issue (which can also cause a panic). Another contributing factor is incorrect marking of a ptrace relationship as privileged, which is exploitable through (for example) Polkit's pkexec helper with PTRACE_TRACEME. NOTE: SELinux deny_ptrace might be a usable workaround in some environments.

Sources

CVSS vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H