CVE-2025-23395

Publication date 8 May 2025

Last updated 3 July 2025

Ubuntu priority

Cvss 3 Severity Score

Description

Screen 5.0.0 when it runs with setuid-root privileges does not drop privileges while operating on a user supplied path. This allows unprivileged users to create files in arbitrary locations with `root` ownership, the invoking user's (real) group ownership and file mode 0644. All data written to the Screen PTY will be logged into this file, allowing to escalate to root privileges

Read the notes from the security team

Status

Show unmaintained releases

Package	Ubuntu Release	Status
screen	25.04 plucky	Not affected
	24.10 oracular	Not affected
	24.04 LTS noble	Not affected
	22.04 LTS jammy	Not affected
	20.04 LTS focal	Not affected
	18.04 LTS bionic	Not affected
	16.04 LTS xenial	Not affected
	14.04 LTS trusty	Not affected

Notes

mdeslaur

only affects screen 5.0.0 with setuid-root Ubuntu does not install screen setuid-root

Severity score breakdown

CVSS version: CVSS v3.0

Base score 7.8 · High

Base metrics

Parameter	Value
Attack vector	Local
Attack complexity	Low
Privileges required	Low
User interaction	None
Scope	Unchanged
Confidentiality impact	High
Integrity impact	High
Availability impact	High

Scores

Parameter	Value
Base score	7.8 · High
Exploitability score	-
Impact score	-

Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H