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.
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Affected | Fixed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nagios Enterprises | nagios | 4.2.x | — |
Fixed in Linux distributions
Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.
SUSE
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| SLES 11 SP4 | nagios | 3.0.6-1.25.36.3.1 | SUSE-SU-2018:3240-1 |
Show 3 more (older releases, extended support, other products)Fewer releases
| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| SLES for SAP 11 SP4 | nagios | 3.0.6-1.25.36.3.1 | SUSE-SU-2018:3240-1 |
| SUSE Manager Client Tools 12 | icinga | 1.13.3-12.3.1 | SUSE-SU-2018:3620-1 |
| SUSE Enterprise Storage 4 | icinga | 1.13.3-12.3.1 | SUSE-SU-2018:3620-1 |
openSUSE
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| openSUSE Tumbleweed | nagios | 4.4.6-2.5 | openSUSE-SU-2024:11073-1 |
Public exploits
Exploit or proof-of-concept code for this vulnerability is publicly available, which lowers the bar for attackers. Treat it as a reason to patch sooner.
Exploit-DB 1
- Nagios 4.2.2 - Local Privilege Escalation EDB-40774 · local · Nov 18, 2016 · verified
Sources: PoC-in-GitHub, Metasploit Framework, Exploit-DB — updated daily. Only links are listed; no exploit code is hosted here.
Advisories 3
- SUSE-SU-2018:3620-1 Security update for icinga SUSE / openSUSE Security Updates · Feb 4, 2026
- SUSE-SU-2018:3240-1 Security update for nagios SUSE / openSUSE Security Updates · Feb 4, 2026
- openSUSE-SU-2024:11073-1 nagios-4.4.6-2.5 on GA media SUSE / openSUSE Security Updates · May 7, 2025