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CVE-1999-0433

21
FAUCET Score

CVE-1999-0433 describes a symlink attack vulnerability in the XFree86 startx command, impacting various Linux distributions like NetBSD, Red Hat, Slackware, and SUSE. This flaw allows local users to create files in restricted directories, potentially leading to privilege escalation or denial of service. With a CVSS score of 4.6 (Medium), it requires local access and low attack complexity, but can result in partial confidentiality, integrity, and availability impacts. While no active exploitation is noted and community discussion is minimal, a proof-of-concept exploit exists on ExploitDB, indicating its theoretical exploitability.

Impacted Technologies

VendorProductVersion(s)CPE
3.3.3CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:xfree86_project:x11r6:3.3.3:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
1.3.2CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:netbsd:netbsd:1.3.2:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
1.3.3CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:netbsd:netbsd:1.3.3:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
5.1CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:redhat:linux:5.1:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
5.2CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:redhat:linux:5.2:*:i386:*:*:*:*:*

CVSS Data

CVSS version used by this source: 2.0

4.6MEDIUM

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

Confidentiality Impact
PARTIAL
Integrity Impact
PARTIAL
Availability Impact
PARTIAL
Access Vector
LOCAL
Access Complexity
LOW
Authentication
NONE
Exploitability Score
3.9
Impact Score
6.4
CvssVersion
2.0

Exploit Intelligence

EPSS Score
0.71%
Probability of exploitation in next 30 days
EPSS Percentile
49.9%
Percentile rank of EPSS score among Peer Group
As of 2026-07-28
Model: v2026.06.15
ExploitDB: EDB-19257 · Mar 21, 1999
This CVE's current EPSS score of 0.0071 is in the 84th percentile among its peer group of 3,052 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 0.4 GitHub mentions.

Media Mentions

No media coverage found for this CVE.

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

Remediation

Remediation records are not available for this CVE.

References

exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com / vulnerabilities/CVE-1999-0433