Description
pt_chown in the glibc package before 2.19-18+deb8u4 on Debian jessie; the elibc package before 2.15-0ubuntu10.14 on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and before 2.19-0ubuntu6.8 on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS; and the glibc package before 2.21-0ubuntu4.2 on Ubuntu 15.10 and before 2.23-0ubuntu1 on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and 16.10 lacks a namespace check associated with file-descriptor passing, which allows local users to capture keystrokes and spoof data, and possibly gain privileges, via pts read and write operations, related to debian/sysdeps/linux.mk. NOTE: this is not considered a vulnerability in the upstream GNU C Library because the upstream documentation has a clear security recommendation against the --enable-pt_chown option.
Published: 2016-03-14
Score: 8.4 High
EPSS: < 1% Very Low
KEV: No
Impact: n/a
Action: n/a
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Remediation

No vendor fix or workaround currently provided.

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Tracking

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Advisories
Source ID Title
EUVD EUVD EUVD-2016-3929 pt_chown in the glibc package before 2.19-18+deb8u4 on Debian jessie; the elibc package before 2.15-0ubuntu10.14 on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and before 2.19-0ubuntu6.8 on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS; and the glibc package before 2.21-0ubuntu4.2 on Ubuntu 15.10 and before 2.23-0ubuntu1 on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and 16.10 lacks a namespace check associated with file-descriptor passing, which allows local users to capture keystrokes and spoof data, and possibly gain privileges, via pts read and write operations, related to debian/sysdeps/linux.mk. NOTE: this is not considered a vulnerability in the upstream GNU C Library because the upstream documentation has a clear security recommendation against the --enable-pt_chown option.
Ubuntu USN Ubuntu USN USN-2985-1 GNU C Library vulnerabilities
History

Fri, 11 Jul 2025 13:45:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Metrics epss

{'score': 0.00715}

epss

{'score': 0.00684}


Subscriptions

Canonical Ubuntu Linux
Debian Debian Linux
Gnu Glibc
cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: mitre

Published:

Updated: 2024-08-05T23:40:13.594Z

Reserved: 2016-03-06T00:00:00.000Z

Link: CVE-2016-2856

cve-icon Vulnrichment

No data.

cve-icon NVD

Status : Modified

Published: 2016-03-14T01:59:04.950

Modified: 2026-05-06T22:30:45.220

Link: CVE-2016-2856

cve-icon Redhat

No data.

cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

No data.

Weaknesses