Vulnerability Monitor

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CVE-2018-6198

w3m through 0.5.3 does not properly handle temporary files when the ~/.w3m directory is unwritable, which allows a local attacker to craft a symlink attack to overwrite arbitrary files.

Security Impact Summary

This vulnerability carries a MEDIUM severity rating with a CVSS v3.1 score of 4.7, requiring local system access to exploit but requires specific conditions to be met without requiring user interaction requiring only low-level privileges . The vulnerability impacts integrity (unauthorized modifications), for affected systems. Impacting 2 products from tats, from canonical organizations running these solutions should prioritize assessment and patching.

Historical Context

First disclosed in 2018, this vulnerability was reported during a period defined by widespread IoT adoption challenges, mobile security concerns, and the emergence of advanced persistent threat (APT) techniques. Contemporary mitigation strategies focused on secure development practices and third-party component vetting.

Published

2018-01-25T03:29:00.697

Last Modified

2024-11-21T04:10:16.773

Status

Modified

Source

[email protected]

Severity

CVSSv3.0: 4.7 (MEDIUM)

CVSSv2 Vector

AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:P

Access Vector: LOCAL
Access Complexity: MEDIUM
Authentication: NONE
Confidentiality Impact: NONE
Integrity Impact: PARTIAL
Availability Impact: PARTIAL

Exploitability Score

3.4

Impact Score

4.9

Weaknesses

Type: Primary
CWE-59

Affected Vendors & Products

Type	Vendor	Product	Version/Range	Vulnerable?
Application	tats	w3m	≤ 0.5.3	Yes
Operating System	canonical	ubuntu_linux	12.04	Yes
Operating System	canonical	ubuntu_linux	14.04	Yes
Operating System	canonical	ubuntu_linux	16.04	Yes
Operating System	canonical	ubuntu_linux	17.10	Yes

References

http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2019-04/msg00028.html ([email protected])
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/102855 Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry ([email protected])
https://bugs.debian.org/888097 Issue Tracking, Patch, Third Party Advisory ([email protected])
https://github.com/tats/w3m/commit/18dcbadf2771cdb0c18509b14e4e73505b242753 Patch, Third Party Advisory ([email protected])
https://salsa.debian.org/debian/w3m/commit/18dcbadf2771cdb0c18509b14e4e73505b242753 Patch, Third Party Advisory ([email protected])
https://usn.ubuntu.com/3555-1/ Third Party Advisory ([email protected])
https://usn.ubuntu.com/3555-2/ Third Party Advisory ([email protected])
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2019-04/msg00028.html (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/102855 Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
https://bugs.debian.org/888097 Issue Tracking, Patch, Third Party Advisory (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
https://github.com/tats/w3m/commit/18dcbadf2771cdb0c18509b14e4e73505b242753 Patch, Third Party Advisory (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
https://salsa.debian.org/debian/w3m/commit/18dcbadf2771cdb0c18509b14e4e73505b242753 Patch, Third Party Advisory (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
https://usn.ubuntu.com/3555-1/ Third Party Advisory (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
https://usn.ubuntu.com/3555-2/ Third Party Advisory (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)

How SecUtils Interprets This CVE

SecUtils normalizes and enriches National Vulnerability Database (NVD) records by standardizing vendor and product identifiers, aggregating vulnerability metadata from both NVD and MITRE sources, and providing structured context for security teams. For tats's affected products, we extract Common Platform Enumeration (CPE) data, Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) classifications, CVSS severity metrics, and reference data to enable rapid vulnerability prioritization and asset correlation. This record contains no exploit code, proof-of-concept instructions, or attack methodologies—only defensive intelligence necessary for patch management, risk assessment, and security operations.