CVE-2018-13054

Publication date 2 July 2018

Last updated 25 August 2025

Ubuntu priority

Cvss 3 Severity Score

Description

An issue was discovered in Cinnamon 1.9.2 through 3.8.6. The cinnamon-settings-users.py GUI runs as root and allows configuration of (for example) other users' icon files in _on_face_browse_menuitem_activated and _on_face_menuitem_activated. These icon files are written to the respective user's $HOME/.face location. If an unprivileged user prepares a symlink pointing to an arbitrary location, then this location will be overwritten with the icon content.

From the Ubuntu Security Team

Matthias Gerstner discovered that the cinnamon-settings-users utility in Cinnamon did not safely handle symlinks. An unprivileged user could potentially use this vulnerability to overwrite arbitrary files as root.

Status

Show unmaintained releases

Package	Ubuntu Release	Status
cinnamon	23.04 lunar	Not affected
	22.10 kinetic	Not affected
	22.04 LTS jammy	Not affected
	21.10 impish	Not affected
	21.04 hirsute	Not affected
	20.10 groovy	Not affected
	20.04 LTS focal	Not affected
	19.10 eoan	Not affected
	19.04 disco	Not affected
	18.10 cosmic	Ignored end of life
	18.04 LTS bionic	Fixed 3.6.7-8ubuntu1+esm1
	17.10 artful	Ignored end of life
	16.04 LTS xenial	Fixed 2.8.6-1ubuntu1+esm1
	14.04 LTS trusty	Not in release

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Severity score breakdown

Parameter	Value
Base score	8.1 · High
Attack vector	Network
Attack complexity	Low
Privileges required	None
User interaction	Required
Scope	Unchanged
Confidentiality	None
Integrity impact	High
Availability impact	High
Vector	CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H

References

Related Ubuntu Security Notices (USN)

USN-4844-1
Cinnamon vulnerability
15 March 2021