CVE-2009-4033
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 · uneditedA certain Red Hat patch for acpid 1.0.4 effectively triggers a call to the open function with insufficient arguments, which might allow local users to leverage weak permissions on /var/log/acpid, and obtain sensitive information by reading this file, cause a denial of service by overwriting this file, or gain privileges by executing this file.
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 · moderate confidenceA Red Hat patch for acpid 1.0.4 contains a bug that causes the open() function to be called with insufficient arguments. Combined with weak permissions on /var/log/acpid, this allows local users to read sensitive information from the log file, cause denial of service by overwriting it, or potentially execute it for privilege escalation.
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= 1.0.4CVSS 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
- M
- Authentication
- None
- Confidentiality
- Complete
- Integrity
- Complete
- Availability
- Complete
AV:L/AC:M/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 checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Verify acpid versionRun 'acpid --version' or check the installed package version with your system's package manager (e.g., 'rpm -q acpid' on RHEL/CentOS, 'dpkg -l acpid' on Debian)Affected if The installed version is exactly 1.0.4
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Inspect /var/log/acpid permissionsRun 'ls -la /var/log/acpid' to check the file permissions and ownershipAffected if The file is world-readable (permissions include 'r--r--r--' or similar) or writable by non-privileged users
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Check if acpid service is runningRun 'ps aux | grep acpid' or 'service acpid status' to determine if the daemon is activeAffected if acpid is running and the log file permissions are weak (world-readable or writable)
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Verify log file ownership and groupRun 'stat /var/log/acpid' to see ownership details; check if owned by root:acpid or similar restrictive ownershipAffected if The log file is not owned by root or the acpid group, or permissions allow access by other users
You are affected if acpid version 1.0.4 is installed and /var/log/acpid has weak permissions (world-readable or writable by non-root users)
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
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 dataRestrict permissions on /var/log/acpid to root/acpid only (e.g., chmod 640 /var/log/acpid) and apply vendor patches that fix the open() argument handling in acpid.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation4.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $2,560.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2009-4033 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2009-4033 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- 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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