• Home
  • Cyber Crime
  • Cyber warfare
  • APT
  • Data Breach
  • Deep Web
  • Digital ID
  • Hacking
  • Hacktivism
  • Intelligence
  • Internet of Things
  • Laws and regulations
  • Malware
  • Mobile
  • Reports
  • Security
  • Social Networks
  • Terrorism
  • ICS-SCADA
  • POLICIES
  • Contact me
MUST READ

AI for Cybersecurity: Building Trust in Your Workflows

 | 

Taiwan Web Infrastructure targeted by APT UAT-7237 with custom toolset

 | 

New NFC-Driven Android Trojan PhantomCard targets Brazilian bank customers

 | 

Cisco fixed maximum-severity security flaw in Secure Firewall Management Center

 | 

'Blue Locker' Ransomware Targeting Oil & Gas Sector in Pakistan

 | 

Hackers exploit Microsoft flaw to breach Canada ’s House of Commons

 | 

Norway confirms dam intrusion by Pro-Russian hackers

 | 

Zoom patches critical Windows flaw allowing privilege escalation

 | 

Manpower data breach impacted 144,180 individuals

 | 

U.S. CISA adds Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office Excel, and WinRAR flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

 | 

Critical FortiSIEM flaw under active exploitation, Fortinet warns

 | 

Charon Ransomware targets Middle East with APT attack methods

 | 

Hackers leak 2.8M sensitive records from Allianz Life in Salesforce data breach

 | 

SAP fixed 26 flaws in August 2025 Update, including 4 Critical

 | 

August 2025 Patch Tuesday fixes a Windows Kerberos Zero-Day

 | 

Dutch NCSC: Citrix NetScaler zero-day breaches critical orgs

 | 

Chrome sandbox escape nets security researcher $250,000 reward

 | 

Smart Buses flaws expose vehicles to tracking, control, and spying

 | 

MedusaLocker ransomware group is looking for pentesters

 | 

Google confirms Salesforce CRM breach, faces extortion threat

 | 
  • Home
  • Cyber Crime
  • Cyber warfare
  • APT
  • Data Breach
  • Deep Web
  • Digital ID
  • Hacking
  • Hacktivism
  • Intelligence
  • Internet of Things
  • Laws and regulations
  • Malware
  • Mobile
  • Reports
  • Security
  • Social Networks
  • Terrorism
  • ICS-SCADA
  • POLICIES
  • Contact me
  • Home
  • Breaking News
  • Security
  • Critical Sudo bugs expose major Linux distros to local Root exploits

Critical Sudo bugs expose major Linux distros to local Root exploits

Pierluigi Paganini July 04, 2025

Critical Sudo flaws let local users gain root access on Linux systems, the vulnerabilities affect major Linux distributions.

Cybersecurity researchers disclosed two vulnerabilities in the Sudo command-line utility for Linux and Unix-like operating systems. Local attackers can exploit the vulnerabilities to escalate privileges to root on affected systems.

Sudo (short for “superuser do”) is a command-line utility found in Unix and Linux systems. It lets a permitted user run commands with the security privileges of another user, most commonly the root user (the system’s most powerful administrative account).

Below is the description of the two vulnerabilities:

  • CVE-2025-32462 (CVSS score: 2.8) – Sudo before 1.9.17p1, when used with a sudoers file that specifies a host that is neither the current host nor ALL, allows listed users to execute commands on unintended machines.
  • CVE-2025-32463 (CVSS score: 9.3) – Sudo before 1.9.17p1 allows local users to obtain root access because /etc/nsswitch.conf from a user-controlled directory is used with the –chroot option.

The Stratascale Cyber Research Unit (CRU) team discovered both local privilege vulnerabilities.

CVE-2025-32462 is a critical flaw in the Sudo utility, stemming from the --host option introduced in version 1.8.8 in 2013. Though originally meant only for listing rules (sudo -l), it also worked with other commands like sudoedit. In specific enterprise configurations using Host or Host_Alias directives, this oversight lets users run commands with elevated privileges by referencing remote host rules.

“The Stratascale CRU team discovered that since the introduction of the host option in 2013, executing a sudo or sudoedit command with the host option referencing an unrelated remote host rule causes Sudo to treat the rule as valid for the local system. As a result, any command allowed by the remote host rule can be executed on the local machine.” reads the report published by Stratascale.”Even though the production server is explicitly denied for the lowpriv user, root access is achieved by specifying the host option for the development server.”

The issue was addressed with a patch that limits the --host option to listing only.

“Sudo’s -R (–chroot) option is intended to allow the user to run a command with a user-selected root directory if the sudoers file allows it. A change was made in sudo 1.9.14 to resolve paths via chroot() using the user-specified root adirectory while the sudoers file was still being evaluated. It is possible for an attacker to trick sudo into loading an arbitrary shared library by creating an /etc/nsswitch.conf file under the user-specified root directory.” reads the advisory published by Sudo project maintainers. “The change from sudo 1.9.14 has been reverted in sudo 1.9.17p1 and the chroot feature has been marked as deprecated. It will be removed entirely in a future sudo release. Because of the way sudo resolves commands, supporting a user-specified chroot directory is error-prone and this feature does not appear to be widely used.”

On April 1st, 2025, Rich Mirch from Stratascale Cyber Research Unit (CRU) reported the vulnerability to Sudo maintainer Todd Miller. On June 23, 2025 a patch was sent to operating system distros list. Sudo advisory links confirmed.

Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Sudo)


facebook linkedin twitter

Hacking hacking news information security news IT Information Security LINUX Pierluigi Paganini Security Affairs Security News Sudo

you might also like

Pierluigi Paganini August 18, 2025
AI for Cybersecurity: Building Trust in Your Workflows
Read more
Pierluigi Paganini August 18, 2025
Human resources firm Workday disclosed a data breach
Read more

leave a comment

newsletter

Subscribe to my email list and stay
up-to-date!

    recent articles

    AI for Cybersecurity: Building Trust in Your Workflows

    Security / August 18, 2025

    Taiwan Web Infrastructure targeted by APT UAT-7237 with custom toolset

    APT / August 16, 2025

    New NFC-Driven Android Trojan PhantomCard targets Brazilian bank customers

    Malware / August 15, 2025

    Cisco fixed maximum-severity security flaw in Secure Firewall Management Center

    Security / August 15, 2025

    'Blue Locker' Ransomware Targeting Oil & Gas Sector in Pakistan

    Malware / August 15, 2025

    To contact me write an email to:

    Pierluigi Paganini :
    pierluigi.paganini@securityaffairs.co

    LEARN MORE

    QUICK LINKS

    • Home
    • Cyber Crime
    • Cyber warfare
    • APT
    • Data Breach
    • Deep Web
    • Digital ID
    • Hacking
    • Hacktivism
    • Intelligence
    • Internet of Things
    • Laws and regulations
    • Malware
    • Mobile
    • Reports
    • Security
    • Social Networks
    • Terrorism
    • ICS-SCADA
    • POLICIES
    • Contact me

    Copyright@securityaffairs 2024

    We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept All”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent.
    Cookie SettingsAccept All
    Manage consent

    Privacy Overview

    This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities...
    Necessary
    Always Enabled
    Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
    Non-necessary
    Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
    SAVE & ACCEPT