CVE-2015-5287: Red Hat Automatic Bug Reporting Tool Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

CVE-2015-5287 is a local privilege-escalation flaw in the Red Hat Automatic Bug Reporting Tool (ABRT). A user who already has limited access on a system can abuse how ABRT handles a file with a predictable name—via a symlink attack—to obtain higher privileges. That matters because ABRT has historically been present on many Red Hat and related Linux hosts used for crash reporting; successful abuse can turn a foothold into full administrative control of the machine. Impacted builds may be end-of-life or end-of-service, so teams should treat continued use as elevated risk and plan to move off unsupported software.

Public technical detail is limited to the class of issue described by CISA. Confirm exact package versions, fixed releases, and configuration caveats only against the current Red Hat (or successor) vendor advisory before you act.

How it works

The weakness is a classic local privilege-escalation pattern built around insecure handling of a predictable filename and symbolic links. ABRT performs privileged operations on paths that an unprivileged or partially privileged local user can influence. By placing a symlink where ABRT expects a regular file (or otherwise racing the tool’s use of that predictable name), the attacker can cause privileged code to operate on a target of the attacker’s choosing—commonly resulting in overwritten files, altered permissions, or execution in a higher-privilege context.

No remote network exploit path is described in the given facts; the attacker needs local access and the ability to create or manipulate the relevant filesystem objects. Exact race windows, path names, and required group memberships are not specified here and must be taken from the vendor advisory rather than assumed.

Am I affected? How to find it in your systems

ABRT is a crash-reporting component typically found on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and closely related distributions where automatic bug reporting was enabled. It is not a network-facing service in the usual sense; risk is concentrated on hosts where the ABRT packages and services are installed and where untrusted or multi-user local access exists (shared jump hosts, developer workstations, containers that mount host paths, etc.).

• Inventory: query package managers for ABRT-related packages (for example names containing abrt) across RHEL, CentOS, Fedora-derived, and rebuild images; include golden images, containers, and long-lived VMs.
• Configuration: note whether ABRT daemons or hooks are enabled, whether crash reporting runs with elevated privileges, and whether non-admin users can trigger reports or write under directories ABRT uses.
• Version posture: compare installed package versions to the fixed versions listed in the vendor advisory. If the product line is end-of-life or end-of-service, treat the host as unsupported regardless of patch level.
• Telemetry: look for unexpected local privilege transitions, ABRT service crashes or restarts correlated with user activity, creation of symlinks in temporary or ABRT-managed directories, and audit events around privileged file operations initiated by ABRT processes. Absence of such logs does not prove safety; many older deployments lack fine-grained audit rules for this path.

How to remediate

Patch first. Apply the vendor-supplied update for ABRT that addresses CVE-2015-5287, following Red Hat’s (or your distribution’s) instructions and change-control process. After installation, verify the package version and restart or disable any ABRT services as the advisory directs so the vulnerable code path is no longer loaded.

• If the advisory or your support status indicates the product is end-of-life or end-of-service, discontinue use and migrate crash-reporting or diagnostic functions to a supported alternative rather than leaving an unmaintained component in place.
• Reduce local attack surface: limit who can log in interactively, enforce least privilege, and remove unnecessary ABRT hooks if crash reporting is not required on that host class.
• Harden filesystem use for this class of bug: ensure temporary and report directories used by privileged helpers have safe ownership and modes; prefer designs that do not follow attacker-controlled symlinks (vendor fixes typically address this).
• Align with CISA’s BOD 26-04 prioritization and forensics-triage expectations for assets in scope; document internet exposure (generally low for ABRT itself) and residual risk for any host that cannot be upgraded immediately.

If you can't patch immediately

Compensating controls only buy time; they do not replace the vendor fix or a supported replacement.

• Disable or uninstall ABRT where operationally acceptable so the vulnerable helper is not present.
• Segment and restrict local access: remove interactive logins for untrusted users, tighten sudo and group memberships, and isolate multi-tenant workloads so a low-privilege compromise cannot reach ABRT-managed paths.
• Apply host-based controls that block symlink abuse patterns in sensitive directories where your OS and tooling allow (for example restricted sticky directories and mount options that reduce symlink following), understanding these are partial mitigations for the class.
• Increase monitoring: alert on ABRT process activity, unexpected privilege escalations, and filesystem events involving predictable report paths; retain logs long enough for triage.
• Virtual patching or WAF is generally irrelevant for a local symlink privilege-escalation issue; focus effort on host configuration and access control instead.
• If mitigations are unavailable and the product is unsupported, plan decommission or replacement on a short timeline consistent with BOD 26-04-style risk prioritization.

If your data may have been exposed

Actively exploited local privilege-escalation flaws are often used after an initial compromise to deepen access, move laterally, or stage data theft. Known ransomware use is not documented for this CVE in the provided facts, but any host that ran vulnerable ABRT with untrusted local users should be reviewed for unauthorized accounts, persistence, and sensitive data access. If you believe credentials or personal data may have left your environment, follow your incident-response process, rotate secrets that could have been reached from the host, and consider checking whether your email addresses appear in known breach corpora via a free exposure scan as one quick external signal—not a substitute for host forensics.