CVE-2024-48992
Qualys discovered that needrestart, before version 3.8, allows local attackers to execute arbitrary code as root by tricking needrestart…
- 7.8HighCVSS base score
- 8.0%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 5.2% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- NonePublic exploitsnone known yet
Description
Qualys discovered that needrestart, before version 3.8, allows local attackers to execute arbitrary code as root by tricking needrestart into running the Ruby interpreter with an attacker-controlled RUBYLIB environment variable.
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)
- 8.0% · top 5.2% of all CVEs (11 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-2024-48992 (opens in a new tab)issue-tracking
- https://github.com/liske/needrestart/commit/b5f25f6ec6e7dd0c5be249e4e45de4ee9ffe594f (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-2024-43160 (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-2024-48992)Record last updated .