Debian LinuxOperating system · Debian
CVE-2012-0842
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 · uneditedsurf: cookie jar has read access from other local user
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 confidenceIn the surf web browser, the cookie jar (stored cookie data) has incorrect file permissions allowing any local user on the system to read its contents. This enables unauthorized access to session cookies and potentially authenticated web sessions.
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
Debian LinuxOperating system
= 8.0= 9.0= 10.0< 0.5CVSS 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
- Privileges
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- None
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
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 surf browser is installedRun 'which surf' or check your package manager for the surf package installation statusAffected if surf is installed and the version is less than 0.5, or if the installed version is unknown but the package is present on Debian 8.0, 9.0, or 10.0
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Locate the surf cookie jar fileCheck the default location at ~/.surf/cookies.txt or look for cookie storage paths in surf configuration filesAffected if A cookie jar file exists in the surf user directory
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Check file permissions on the cookie jarRun 'ls -la' on the cookie jar file (for example: ls -la ~/.surf/cookies.txt) and examine the permission string in the first columnAffected if The permission string shows 'r--r--r--' (world-readable) or contains 'r--' for 'others', or shows group-readable permissions that other local users can access
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Verify if other local users can read the cookie fileAs a different test user on the system, attempt to read the cookie jar file with 'cat ~/.surf/cookies.txt' (substituting the actual path)Affected if Non-owner users can successfully read the cookie jar contents, indicating overly permissive access controls
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Confirm cookie jar ownership matches expected userCheck the owner of the cookie jar file matches the user who runs the surf browserAffected if The file is owned by a different user than the one running surf, or ownership is misconfigured
A user is affected if the surf browser is installed with a version prior to 0.5 on Debian 8.0-10.0 and the cookie jar file grants read access to other local users (o+r or g+r permissions).
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 data0.5
Configure strict file permissions (chmod 600) on the surf cookie jar file to restrict read access to only the browser user, and verify default permission settings are applied correctly on cookie storage locations.
Fix this in Debian Linux
Scoped from the published advisory
- Consultation1.0 h
- Implementation1.0 h
- Testing1.0 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 $1,200.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2012-0842 — 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-2012-0842 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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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.
- 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
- No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data