CVE-2023-3972Insights-client: unsafe handling of temporary files and directories

Description

A vulnerability was found in insights-client. This security issue occurs because of insecure file operations or unsafe handling of temporary files and directories that lead to local privilege escalation. Before the insights-client has been registered on the system by root, an unprivileged local user or attacker could create the /var/tmp/insights-client directory (owning the directory with read, write, and execute permissions) on the system. After the insights-client is registered by root, an attacker could then control the directory content that insights are using by putting malicious scripts into it and executing arbitrary code as root (trivially bypassing SELinux protections because insights processes are allowed to disable SELinux system-wide).

Timeline

Scores

EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)

0.27% · top 80% of all CVEs (13 Nov 2026)

CISA SSVC

Exploitation: none · Automatable: no · Technical impact: total

The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: High 7.8.

Affected products

• Red Hat · Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7

  • unaffected 0:3.1.9-1.el7_9 – < *

• Red Hat · Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8

  • unaffected 0:3.2.2-1.el8_8 – < *

• Red Hat · Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1 Update Services for SAP Solutions

  • unaffected 0:3.2.3-1.el8_1 – < *

• Red Hat · Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.2 Advanced Update Support

  • unaffected 0:3.2.3-1.el8_2 – < *

• Red Hat · Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.2 Telecommunications Update Service

  • unaffected 0:3.2.3-1.el8_2 – < *

• Red Hat · Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.2 Update Services for SAP Solutions

  • unaffected 0:3.2.3-1.el8_2 – < *

• Red Hat · Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 Advanced Mission Critical Update Support

  • unaffected 0:3.2.3-1.el8_4 – < *

• Red Hat · Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 Telecommunications Update Service

  • unaffected 0:3.2.3-1.el8_4 – < *

• Red Hat · Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 Update Services for SAP Solutions

  • unaffected 0:3.2.3-1.el8_4 – < *

• Red Hat · Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.6 Extended Update Support

  • unaffected 0:3.2.2-1.el8_6 – < *

• Red Hat · Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9

  • unaffected 0:3.2.2-1.el9_2 – < *

• Red Hat · Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.0 Extended Update Support

  • unaffected 0:3.2.2-1.el9_0 – < *

• Red Hat · Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6

  All versions: unknown

What to do

Workaround: Red Hat has investigated whether a possible mitigation exists for this issue, and has not been able to identify a practical example. Please update the affected package as soon as possible.

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-2023-44597 (opens in a new tab)
• OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
• GitHub Advisories (opens in a new tab)
• CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)

Badge for a README or a ticket

[![CVE-2023-3972](https://cveledger.app/badge/CVE-2023-3972.svg)](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2023-3972)

Record last updated 7 Nov 2026, 11:32 UTC.