Passenger
CVE-2018-12028
HIGH
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A01:2025 - Broken Access Control
ASVS 5.0
V13 - Configuration Permission assignment review
|
| Impact | CVSS score of 7.8 (HIGH). Attack characteristics: local attack vector, low complexity, no privileges required, user interaction required. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | A local attacker with access to the system could access resources due to misconfigured permissions. No authentication is required to exploit this vulnerability. |
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Alert meAnalysisAI
An Incorrect Access Control vulnerability in SpawningKit in Phusion Passenger 5.3.x before 5.3.2 allows a Passenger-managed malicious application, upon spawning a child process, to report an. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.8), this vulnerability is no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
RemediationAI
No vendor patch is available at time of analysis. Monitor vendor advisories for updates. Review and restrict file/resource permissions, apply principle of least privilege.
Affected Packages
Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)
Affects your stack
Affects 1 package in rubygems
Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.
Technical ContextAI · show details
This vulnerability is classified as Incorrect Permission Assignment (CWE-732), which allows attackers to access resources due to misconfigured permissions. An Incorrect Access Control vulnerability in SpawningKit in Phusion Passenger 5.3.x before 5.3.2 allows a Passenger-managed malicious application, upon spawning a child process, to report an arbitrary different PID back to Passenger's process manager. If the malicious application then generates an error, it would cause Passenger's process manager to kill said reported arbitrary PID. Affected products include: Phusion Passenger. Version information: before 5.3.2.
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- Exploit and PoC references, threat intelligence from 22 sources
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Severity by source
AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Primary rating from NVD · only source for this CVE.
CVSS VectorNVD
DescriptionNVD
An Incorrect Access Control vulnerability in SpawningKit in Phusion Passenger 5.3.x before 5.3.2 allows a Passenger-managed malicious application, upon spawning a child process, to report an arbitrary different PID back to Passenger's process manager. If the malicious application then generates an error, it would cause Passenger's process manager to kill said reported arbitrary PID.
Threat Intelligence Overview
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
How this decision was reached
The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.
What every action level means
SSVC AssessmentENISA
Priority Score
Attack Technique
Information disclosure occurs when an application unintentionally exposes sensitive data that aids attackers in reconnaissance or directly compromises security.
Affected Products (CPE)NVD
During the spawning of a malicious Passenger-managed application, SpawningKit in Phusion Passenger 5.3.x before 5.3.2 al
An Insecure Permissions vulnerability in SpawningKit in Phusion Passenger 5.3.x before 5.3.2 causes information disclosu
In Phusion Passenger before 5.1.0, a known /tmp filename was used during passenger-install-nginx-module execution, which
A race condition in the nginx module in Phusion Passenger 3.x through 5.x before 5.3.2 allows local escalation of privil
The http parser in Phusion Passenger 6.0.21 through 6.0.25 before 6.0.26 allows a denial of service during parsing of a
An issue was discovered in switchGroup() in agent/ExecHelper/ExecHelperMain.cpp in Phusion Passenger before 5.3.2. Rated
In agent/Core/SpawningKit/Spawner.h in Phusion Passenger 5.1.10 (fixed in Passenger Open Source 5.1.11 and Passenger Ent
Phusion Passenger gem before 3.0.21 and 4.0.x before 4.0.5 for Ruby allows local users to cause a denial of service (pre
ext/common/ServerInstanceDir.h in Phusion Passenger gem before 4.0.6 for Ruby allows local users to gain privileges or p
Phusion Passenger 4.0.37 allows local users to write to certain files and directories via a symlink attack on (1) contro
Phusion Passenger before 4.0.37 allows local users to write to certain files and directories via a symlink attack on (1)
GitHub PoC
Exploit-DB