{"id":"CVE-2018-16588","url":"https://www.cyber-defence.io/tools/cve/CVE-2018-16588","generatedAt":"2026-10-28T19:06:03.414Z","title":"Privilege escalation can occur in the SUSE useradd.c code in useradd, as distributed in the SUSE shadow package through 4.2.1-27.9.1 for SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 (SLE-12) and through 4.5-5.39 for SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 (SLE-15).","description":"Privilege escalation can occur in the SUSE useradd.c code in useradd, as distributed in the SUSE shadow package through 4.2.1-27.9.1 for SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 (SLE-12) and through 4.5-5.39 for SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 (SLE-15). Non-existing intermediate directories are created with mode 0777 during user creation. Given that they are world-writable, local attackers might use this for privilege escalation and other unspecified attacks.  NOTE: this would affect non-SUSE users who took useradd.c code from a 2014-04-02 upstream pull request; however, no non-SUSE distribution is known to be affected.","published":"2018-09-26T22:29:01.000Z","lastModified":"2026-06-17T01:44:31.000Z","status":"Modified","sourceIdentifier":"cve@mitre.org","cvss":{"version":"3.0","score":7.8,"severity":"HIGH","vector":"CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H"},"cwe":["CWE-732"],"affected":["suse/shadow"],"epss":{"score":0.00301,"percentile":0.22647,"date":"2026-10-27","history":[]},"kev":{"listed":false},"exploits":{"count":0,"verified":false,"firstPublished":null,"source":"Exploit-DB (https://gitlab.com/exploit-database/exploitdb)","entries":[]},"verdict":{"level":"high","text":"High impact if exploited, but EPSS currently rates exploitation as unlikely (0.30%). Schedule it in the normal patch cycle and watch for a rise in EPSS or a public exploit."},"changes":[],"references":[{"url":"http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2018-09/msg00073.html","tags":["Vendor Advisory"],"source":"cve@mitre.org"},{"url":"http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2018-09/msg00073.html","tags":["Vendor Advisory"],"source":"af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108"}],"sources":{"nvd":"https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-16588","epss":"https://www.first.org/epss/","kev":"https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog","exploitdb":"https://www.exploit-db.com/"},"licence":"CC BY 4.0 — link back to the CVE Explorer if you publish the results; upstream data remains subject to its own terms."}