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CVE-2008-1078

18
FAUCET Score

CVE-2008-1078 describes a local privilege escalation vulnerability in the expn utility within am-utils and net-fs packages, affecting Gentoo, rPath Linux, and other distributions. An attacker can exploit this flaw by using a symlink attack on the expn[PID] temporary file, allowing them to overwrite arbitrary files on the system. With a CVSS score of 7.2 (High), this vulnerability has a low attack complexity and requires local access, but can lead to complete compromise of confidentiality, integrity, and availability. There is no public exploit code available, nor is there evidence of active exploitation or significant community discussion surrounding this decade-old vulnerability.

Impacted Technologies

VendorProductVersion(s)CPE
All Versions ImpactedCPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:gentoo:linux:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
All Versions ImpactedCPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:rpath:rpath_linux:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

CVSS Data

CVSS version used by this source: 2.0

7.2HIGH

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

Confidentiality Impact
COMPLETE
Integrity Impact
COMPLETE
Availability Impact
COMPLETE
Access Vector
LOCAL
Access Complexity
LOW
Authentication
NONE
Exploitability Score
3.9
Impact Score
10.0
CvssVersion
2.0

Exploit Intelligence

EPSS Score
0.51%
Probability of exploitation in next 30 days
EPSS Percentile
40.8%
Percentile rank of EPSS score among Peer Group
As of 2026-07-26
Model: v2026.06.15
This CVE's current EPSS score of 0.0051 is in the 61st percentile among its peer group of 3,237 CVEs.

Social Chatter

No social media mentions found for this CVE.

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.0 Twitter, 0.0 Reddit, 0.1 Bluesky, 0.0 Mastodon, and 0.5 GitHub mentions.

Media Mentions

No media coverage found for this CVE.

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.1 InfoSec Media, 0.0 Vendor Blog, and 0.0 Security Researcher mentions.

Remediation

Vendor Advisories (1)

redhatCVE-2008-1078Low

am-utils: insecure usage of temporary files

Feb 14, 2008

References

bugs.gentoo.org / show_bug.cgi
Exploit
secunia.com / advisories/29144
Vendor Advisory
secunia.com / advisories/29187
Vendor Advisory
secunia.com / advisories/29694
Vendor Advisory
secunia.com / advisories/33400
Vendor Advisory
issues.rpath.com / browse/RPL-2255
redhat.com / archives/fedora-package-announce/2009-January/msg00273.html
wiki.rpath.com / wiki/Advisories:rPSA-2008-0088
gentoo.org / security/en/glsa/glsa-200804-09.xml
securityfocus.com / archive/1/488931/100/0/threaded
securityfocus.com / bid/28044