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Suse LinuxOperating system · Suse

CVE-1999-0906

HIGH · 7.2 CVSS v2.0 Published 1999-09-23
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
77/100
Remediation priority · High
No privileges Zero-click

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
Buffer overflow in sccw allows local users to gain root access via the HOME environmental variable.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · high confidence

Buffer overflow vulnerability in the sccw utility allows local unprivileged users to execute arbitrary code with root privileges by overflowing a buffer through manipulation of the HOME environment variable.

MitigationLocate and apply any available patches for sccw, or replace sccw with a secure alternative. If the software is obsolete and unmaintained, restrict execution permissions to trusted users only or remove the program entirely.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
Suse LinuxOperating system
Affected:= 6.2

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Local
Complexity
Low
Authentication
None
Confidentiality
Complete
Integrity
Complete
Availability
Complete

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

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Check if sccw utility exists
    Run 'which sccw' or 'find /usr -name sccw 2>/dev/null' to locate the sccw binary
    Affected if sccw binary is found on the system
  2. Verify sccw has setuid root permissions
    Run 'ls -l $(which sccw 2>/dev/null)' or 'ls -l /usr/bin/sccw' to check file permissions
    Affected if The sccw binary is owned by root and has the setuid bit set (permissions show '-rwsr-xr-x' or similar with 's' in the owner execute field)
  3. Check SUSE Linux version
    Run 'cat /etc/SuSE-release' or 'lsb_release -r' to determine the installed SUSE version
    Affected if The system is running SUSE Linux version 6.2 exactly
  4. Verify unprivileged user can execute sccw
    As a non-root user, attempt to run 'sccw' directly to confirm execution is permitted without special privileges
    Affected if Unprivileged users can execute the sccw binary and the HOME environment variable influences its behavior

A user is affected if the sccw utility is installed with setuid root permissions on a SUSE Linux 6.2 system, allowing manipulation of the HOME environment variable to trigger the buffer overflow for root privilege escalation.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

From vendor data
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Locate and apply any available patches for sccw, or replace sccw with a secure alternative. If the software is obsolete and unmaintained, restrict execution permissions to trusted users only or remove the program entirely.

Fix this in Suse Linux Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation4.0 h
  • Testing3.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
11.0 hours of engineering $1,930
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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-1999-0906 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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