CVE-2018-12029A race condition in the nginx module in Phusion Passenger 3.x through 5.x before 5.3.2 allows local escalation of privileges when a…
- 7.0HighCVSS base score
- 0.27%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 80% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- NonePublic exploitsnone known yet
Description
A race condition in the nginx module in Phusion Passenger 3.x through 5.x before 5.3.2 allows local escalation of privileges when a non-standard passenger_instance_registry_dir with insufficiently strict permissions is configured. Replacing a file with a symlink after the file was created, but before it was chowned, leads to the target of the link being chowned via the path. Targeting sensitive files such as root's crontab file allows privilege escalation.
Timeline
ID reserved
By mitre
- 10 days later
· 10 days later
Published
- 6 years later
· 6 years later
Record updated
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| NVDNVD · Modified | 3.0 | High7.0 | CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 0.27% · top 80% of all CVEs (12 Nov 2026)
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: High 7.0.
Affected products
n/a
- affected n/a
Affected packages
From reviewed advisories of the GitHub Advisory Database.
- RubyGemspassengerGHSA-jjcj-fgfm-9g9r (opens in a new tab)
References
References4
- https://blog.phusion.nl/passenger-5-3-2 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISCx_transferred
- GLSA-201807-02 (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryx_refsource_GENTOOx_transferred
- https://pulsesecurity.co.nz/advisories/phusion-passenger-priv-esc (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISCx_transferred
- [debian-lts-announce] 20180627 [SECURITY] [DLA 1399-1] ruby-passenger security update (opens in a new tab)mailing-listx_refsource_MLISTx_transferred
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- EUVD EUVD-2022-4382 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisory GHSA-jjcj-fgfm-9g9r (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2018-12029)Record last updated .