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Vulnerability record · CVE-2016-8641 · published 1 August 2018

CVE-2016-8641: Nagios link following vulnerability

Nagios · Nagios

A privilege escalation vulnerability was found in nagios 4.2.x that occurs in daemon-init.in when creating necessary files and insecurely changing the ownership afterwards. It's possible for the local attacker to create symbolic links before the files are to be created and possibly escalating the privileges with the ownership change.

7.8 CVSS 3.0 High EPSS 1.1% · top 34.7% CWE-59 · Link following
7.8CVSS 3.0 base score, v2 7.2
1.1%EPSS exploitation probability, 30 days
NoNot in CISA KEV
1Affected product versions listed by NVD
10References, 2 tagged exploit
17 Jun 2026Last modified by NVD

Description

A privilege escalation vulnerability was found in nagios 4.2.x that occurs in daemon-init.in when creating necessary files and insecurely changing the ownership afterwards. It's possible for the local attacker to create symbolic links before the files are to be created and possibly escalating the privileges with the ownership change.

CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected products

1 vulnerable configurations from NVD's CPE data, grouped by vendor and product.

References

LinkTags
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/95121 Third Party AdvisoryVDB Entry
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=CVE-2016-8641 Issue TrackingPatchThird Party Advisory
https://github.com/NagiosEnterprises/nagioscore/commit/f2ed227673d3b2da643eb5cad26b2d87674f28c1.patch PatchThird Party Advisory
https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/201702-26 Third Party Advisory
https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/40774/ ExploitThird Party AdvisoryVDB Entry
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/95121 Third Party AdvisoryVDB Entry
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=CVE-2016-8641 Issue TrackingPatchThird Party Advisory
https://github.com/NagiosEnterprises/nagioscore/commit/f2ed227673d3b2da643eb5cad26b2d87674f28c1.patch PatchThird Party Advisory
https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/201702-26 Third Party Advisory
https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/40774/ ExploitThird Party AdvisoryVDB Entry

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Related vulnerabilities

Same products first, then exploited flaws of the same weakness class.

10.0CVE-2008-4796Snoopy project snoopy os command injection vulnerabilityThe _httpsrequest function (Snoopy/Snoopy.class.php) in Snoopy 1.2.3 and earlier, as used in (1) ampache, (2) libphp-snoopy, (3) mahara, (4) mediamat…EPSS 9.0%10.0CVE-2002-1959Nagios vulnerabilityNagios 1.0b1 through 1.0b3 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary commands via shell metacharacters in plugin output.EPSS 3.9%9.8CVE-2016-0726Nagios hard-coded credentials vulnerabilityThe Fedora Nagios package uses "nagiosadmin" as the default password for the "nagiosadmin" administrator account, which makes it easier for remote at…EPSS 2.3%9.8CVE-2008-7313Snoopy command injection vulnerabilityThe _httpsrequest function in Snoopy allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary commands. NOTE: this issue exists dues to an incomplete fix for CVE…EPSS 4.5%9.8CVE-2014-5009Snoopy command injection vulnerabilitySnoopy allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary commands. NOTE: this vulnerability exists due to an incomplete fix for CVE-2014-5008.EPSS 4.7%9.8CVE-2016-9565Nagios improper access control vulnerabilityMagpieRSS, as used in the front-end component in Nagios Core before 4.2.2 might allow remote attackers to read or write to arbitrary files by spoofin…EPSS 23%8.8CVE-2020-6585Nagios cross-site request forgery vulnerabilityNagios Log Server 2.1.3 has CSRF.EPSS 1.2%7.8CVE-2016-10089Nagios permissions and access controls vulnerabilityNagios 4.3.2 and earlier allows local users to gain root privileges via a hard link attack on the Nagios init script file, related to CVE-2016-8641.EPSS 0.52%

Source: NIST National Vulnerability Database (record CVE-2016-8641), CISA KEV, FIRST EPSS (scores of 2026-09-26). This page is refreshed as NVD updates the record.