CVE-2018-19044

CVE-2018-19044 is a local privilege escalation vulnerability affecting keepalived version 2.0.8. It stems from the software's failure to properly handle symlinks when creating temporary files for PrintData or PrintStats functions. An attacker could exploit this by creating a symlink from a temporary file path to a critical system file, such as /etc/passwd, allowing them to overwrite arbitrary files if fs.protected_symlinks is disabled. This vulnerability has a CVSS score of 4.7 (Medium), indicating a local attack vector with high attack complexity and a high impact on integrity, but no impact on confidentiality or availability. The exploit requires local access and specific system configurations to be successful. Currently, there is no evidence of active exploitation, and no public exploit code is available on platforms like Metasploit or ExploitDB. Community discussion and media coverage for this CVE are minimal, suggesting it has not garnered significant attention.