Description
In Sudo through 1.8.29, the fact that a user has been blocked (e.g., by using the ! character in the shadow file instead of a password hash) is not considered, allowing an attacker (who has access to a Runas ALL sudoer account) to impersonate any blocked user. NOTE: The software maintainer believes that this CVE is not valid. Disabling local password authentication for a user is not the same as disabling all access to that user--the user may still be able to login via other means (ssh key, kerberos, etc). Both the Linux shadow(5) and passwd(1) manuals are clear on this. Indeed it is a valid use case to have local accounts that are _only_ accessible via sudo and that cannot be logged into with a password. Sudo 1.8.30 added an optional setting to check the _shell_ of the target user (not the encrypted password!) against the contents of /etc/shells but that is not the same thing as preventing access to users with an invalid password hash
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.
Debian
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian 14 | sudo | 1.8.31-1 | — |
| Debian 13 | sudo | 1.8.31-1 | — |
| Debian 12 | sudo | 1.8.31-1 | — |
Ubuntu
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ubuntu 20.04 LTS | sudo | 1.8.31-1ubuntu1 | — |
Red Hat
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| RHEL 8 | sudo | 1.8.29-5.el8 | RHSA-2020:1804 |
Advisories 2
- WID-SEC-2023-1600 sudo: Mehrere Schwachstellen ermöglichen Privilegieneskalation BSI CERT-Bund (WID) · Jun 29, 2026
- RHSA-2020:1804 Red Hat Security Advisory: sudo security, bug fix, and enhancement update Red Hat Security Advisories (RHSA) · Nov 22, 2025
References
- https://www.sudo.ws/stable.html
- https://www.sudo.ws/devel.html#1.8.30b2
- https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20200103-0004/
- https://support2.windriver.com/index.php?page=defects&on=view&id=LIN1018-5505
- https://quickview.cloudapps.cisco.com/quickview/bug/CSCvs58104
- https://quickview.cloudapps.cisco.com/quickview/bug/CSCvs58473
- https://quickview.cloudapps.cisco.com/quickview/bug/CSCvs58812
- https://quickview.cloudapps.cisco.com/quickview/bug/CSCvs58979
- https://quickview.cloudapps.cisco.com/quickview/bug/CSCvs58772
- https://quickview.cloudapps.cisco.com/quickview/bug/CSCvs60748
- https://www.tenable.com/plugins/nessus/132985
- https://support2.windriver.com/index.php?page=defects&on=view&id=LIN1019-3816
- https://support2.windriver.com/index.php?page=cve&on=view&id=CVE-2019-19234
- https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2019-19234/
- https://www.bsi.bund.de/SharedDocs/Warnmeldungen/DE/CB/2019/12/warnmeldung_cb-k20-0001.html
- https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/cve-2019-19234
- FEDORA-2020-8b563bc5f4 vendor-advisory
- FEDORA-2020-7c1b270959 vendor-advisory
- https://www.oracle.com/security-alerts/bulletinapr2020.html