CVE-2024-48990
Qualys discovered that needrestart, before version 3.8, allows local attackers to execute arbitrary code as root by tricking needrestart…
- 7.8HighCVSS base score
- 29.2%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 1.8% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- 1Public exploitsMetasploit, Nuclei and Exploit-DB
Description
Qualys discovered that needrestart, before version 3.8, allows local attackers to execute arbitrary code as root by tricking needrestart into running the Python interpreter with an attacker-controlled PYTHONPATH environment variable.
Public exploit
An exploit or proof of concept is public: anyone can try it against an unpatched system. The public collections list a Metasploit module for it.
Show the exploits1
Metasploit modules1 module
- Ubuntu needrestart Privilege Escalation (Metasploit module) (opens in a new tab)
exploit/linux/local/ubuntu_needrestart_lpeRank greatdisclosed 19 Nov 2024
Modules, templates and exploits as listed by the Metasploit Framework (BSD-3-Clause), ProjectDiscovery's Nuclei templates (MIT) and the Exploit Database (GPLv2), read once a day. Where the data comes from
Timeline
ID reserved
By canonical
- 39 days later
· 39 days later
Published
- 12 months later
· 12 months 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| canonicalCNA (assigner) | 3.1 | High7.8 | CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H |
| NVDNVD · Modified | 3.1 | High7.8 | CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 29.2% · top 1.8% of all CVEs (12 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
- affected < 3.8
What to do
Workaround: Edit /etc/needrestart/needrestart.conf so that the following line appears after "# Disable interpreter scanners." and reboot: $nrconf{interpscan} = 0;
References
References6
- https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2024-48990 (opens in a new tab)issue-tracking
- https://github.com/liske/needrestart/commit/fcc9a4401392231bef4ef5ed026a0d7a275149ab (opens in a new tab)patch
- https://www.qualys.com/2024/11/19/needrestart/needrestart.txt (opens in a new tab)third-party-advisory
- https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2024/11/19/1 (opens in a new tab)
- http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2024/Nov/17 (opens in a new tab)
- https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2024/11/msg00014.html (opens in a new tab)
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-2024-43193 (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
[](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2024-48990)Record last updated .