CVE-2023-40303

Severity
7.8HIGH
EPSS
0.1%
top 83.38%
CISA KEV
Not in KEV
Exploit
No known exploits
Affected products
Timeline
PublishedAug 14
Latest updateSep 28

Description

GNU inetutils before 2.5 may allow privilege escalation because of unchecked return values of set*id() family functions in ftpd, rcp, rlogin, rsh, rshd, and uucpd. This is, for example, relevant if the setuid system call fails when a process is trying to drop privileges before letting an ordinary user control the activities of the process.

CVSS vector

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HExploitability: 1.8 | Impact: 5.9

Affected Packages3 packages

Debianinetutils< 2:2.0-1+deb11u2+3
Ubuntuinetutils< 2:1.9.4-11ubuntu0.2+1
NVDgnu/inetutils2.4

Patches

🔴Vulnerability Details

5
OSV
inetutils vulnerabilities2025-09-28
OSV
inetutils vulnerabilities2023-08-22
OSV
CVE-2023-40303: GNU inetutils before 22023-08-14
GHSA
GHSA-w2mw-45j6-m2cq: GNU inetutils through 22023-08-14
CVEList
CVE-2023-40303: GNU inetutils before 22023-08-14

📋Vendor Advisories

3
Ubuntu
Inetutils vulnerabilities2025-09-28
Ubuntu
Inetutils vulnerabilities2023-08-22
Debian
CVE-2023-40303: inetutils - GNU inetutils before 2.5 may allow privilege escalation because of unchecked ret...2023