CVE-2023-22809

Sudo vulnerability

CVSS

7.8

EPSS

55.4%

EPSS pct

99th

Exploited

No known

In Sudo before 1.9.12p2, the sudoedit (aka -e) feature mishandles extra arguments passed in the user-provided environment variables (SUDO_EDITOR, VISUAL, and EDITOR), allowing a local attacker to append arbitrary entries to the list of files to process. This can lead to privilege escalation. Affected versions are 1.8.0 through 1.9.12.p1. The problem exists because a user-specified editor may contain a "--" argument that defeats a protection mechanism, e.g., an EDITOR='vim -- /path/to/extra/file' value.

Affected vendor

Sudo Project

Affected product

Sudo

CVSS vector

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

Weakness type (CWE)

CWE-269 — Improper Privilege Management

Published

2023-01-18

Risk analysis

Based on its CVSS vector, this vulnerability is exploitable with local access, low attack complexity, requiring low privileges, no user interaction. Successful exploitation leads to high impact to confidentiality, high impact to integrity, high impact to availability.

Its EPSS score of 55.4% reflects a high probability of exploitation activity in the wild over the next 30 days, placing it among the most exploited CVEs currently tracked.

Check your external exposure to CVE-2023-22809

Confirm whether Sudo Project Sudo is running on any internet-facing host or subdomain.
Match discovered service fingerprints against the version affected by CVE-2023-22809.
Prioritise remediation if the asset is public, business-critical, or near authentication/payment flows.

How ThreatPort helps with CVE-2023-22809

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