CVE-2018-6198 describes a local privilege escalation vulnerability in the w3m web browser, affecting versions up to 0.5.3, including those distributed in Canonical and Tats Ubuntu Linux. The flaw stems from improper handling of temporary files when the ~/.w3m directory is unwritable, enabling a local attacker to perform a symlink attack to overwrite arbitrary files. With a CVSS score of 4.7 (Medium), this vulnerability requires local access and high attack complexity, but can lead to high integrity impact (arbitrary file overwrite). There is no evidence of active exploitation, public exploit code (Metasploit, Nuclei, ExploitDB), or significant community discussion or media coverage surrounding this CVE.
| Vendor | Product | Version(s) | CPE |
|---|---|---|---|
<= 0.5.3CPE matchmatch criteria | cpe:2.3:a:tats:w3m:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* | ||
12.04CPE matchmatch criteria | cpe:2.3:o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:12.04:*:*:*:esm:*:*:* | ||
14.04CPE matchmatch criteria | cpe:2.3:o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:14.04:*:*:*:lts:*:*:* | ||
16.04CPE matchmatch criteria | cpe:2.3:o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:16.04:*:*:*:lts:*:*:* | ||
17.10CPE matchmatch criteria | cpe:2.3:o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:17.10:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
CVSS version used by this source: 3.0
CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
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.
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.