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CVE-2018-16888

19
FAUCET Score

CVE-2018-16888 describes a flaw in systemd, affecting versions prior to v237, where it improperly validates PIDFile content. This vulnerability allows a local, unprivileged attacker to manipulate a service's PIDFile, potentially leading to the termination of other services or privileged processes. Rated Medium (CVSS 4.7), exploitation requires high attack complexity and low privileges, resulting in high availability impact. There is no evidence of active exploitation, public exploit code, or significant community discussion surrounding this CVE.

Impacted Technologies

VendorProductVersion(s)CPE
< 237CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:systemd_project:systemd:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
16.04CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:16.04:*:*:*:esm:*:*:*
18.04CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:18.04:*:*:*:lts:*:*:*
19.10CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:19.10:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
7.0CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux:7.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

CVSS Data

CVSS version used by this source: 3.0

4.4MEDIUM

CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Attack Vector
LOCAL
Attack Complexity
HIGH
Privileges Required
LOW
User Interaction
REQUIRED
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality Impact
NONE
Integrity Impact
NONE
Availability Impact
HIGH
Exploitability Score
0.8
Impact Score
3.6
CvssVersion
3.0

Exploit Intelligence

EPSS Score
0.30%
Probability of exploitation in next 30 days
EPSS Percentile
22.0%
Percentile rank of EPSS score among Peer Group
As of 2026-07-27
Model: v2026.06.15
This CVE's current EPSS score of 0.0030 is in the 68th percentile among its peer group of 1,297 CVEs.

Social Chatter

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

Media Mentions

No media coverage found for this CVE.

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.4 InfoSec Media, 0.0 Vendor Blog, and 0.0 Security Researcher mentions.

Remediation

Patch Available

Vendor Patches (5)

redhatpatch availablevia nvd_reference
View patch
redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Ansible Tower 3.4 for RHEL 7Fixed in: ansible-tower-34/ansible-tower-memcached:1.4.15-28
View patch
redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Ansible Tower 3.4 for RHEL 7Fixed in: ansible-tower-35/ansible-tower-memcached:1.4.15-28
View patch
redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Ansible Tower 3.4 for RHEL 7Fixed in: ansible-tower-37/ansible-tower-memcached-rhel7:1.4.15-28
View patch
redhatpatch availablevia redhat_api
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7Fixed in: systemd-0:219-67.el7
View patch

Vendor Advisories (1)

redhatCVE-2018-16888Low

systemd: kills privileged process if unprivileged PIDFile was tampered

Aug 17, 2017

References

access.redhat.com / errata/RHSA-2019:2091
Third Party Advisory
bugzilla.redhat.com / show_bug.cgi
Issue TrackingPatchThird Party Advisory
lists.apache.org / thread.html/5960a34a524848cd722fd7ab7e2227eac10107b0f90d9d1e9c3caa74%40%3Cuser.cassandra.apache.org%3E
security.netapp.com / advisory/ntap-20190307-0007
Third Party Advisory
usn.ubuntu.com / 4269-1
Third Party Advisory