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CVE-2019-18276 is a privilege-dropping flaw in GNU Bash through 5.0 patch 11, located in disable_priv_mode in shell.c. When Bash starts with an effective UID different from its real UID, it is intended to relinquish elevated privileges by setting the effective UID to the real UID. On Linux and other platforms that implement saved-UID semantics, Bash fails to clear the saved UID, leaving a path to regain the original privileges later. An attacker who already has command execution within the affected shell can abuse Bash's runtime-loadable builtin mechanism via enable -f to load a shared object that invokes setuid() and restores the previously dropped privileges. Binaries executing with an effective UID of 0 are not affected by this specific issue.
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1 valid exploit after Mallory filtered fakes, detection scripts, and README-only repos.
This repository demonstrates a local privilege escalation exploit for CVE-2019-18276, a vulnerability in GNU Bash (4.4 and later, prior to patch) that allows bypassing certain restrictions and escalating privileges. The repository is structured as a demonstration environment using Docker, with scripts to set up two users ('victime' and 'hacker'), create a protected secret file, and perform the exploit. The main exploit process involves compiling a C shared object (libpwn.so) that, when loaded into bash via the 'enable' builtin, sets the process's UID to that of the victim user, thus granting access to the protected file /home/victime/.secret.txt. The exploit is fully contained in bash and C scripts, and the Dockerfile automates the environment setup for testing. The attack vector is local, requiring shell access to the target system. No network endpoints are involved. The repository serves as a proof-of-concept for the CVE and is not weaponized for automated attacks.
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