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ArpwatchApplication · Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

CVE-2012-2653

HIGH · 10.0 CVSS v2.0 Published 2012-07-12
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Remotely reachable 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
arpwatch 2.1a15, as used by Red Hat, Debian, Fedora, and possibly others, does not properly drop supplementary groups, which might allow attackers to gain root privileges by leveraging other vulnerabilities in the daemon.

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

arpwatch version 2.1a15 does not properly drop supplementary groups when initializing, which allows the daemon to run with additional group memberships beyond what is intended. This improper privilege handling could enable an attacker who has achieved code execution as the arpwatch user to leverage those extra group permissions for privilege escalation to root.

MitigationRecompile and deploy a patched version of arpwatch that properly drops all supplementary groups during daemon initialization using setgroups() or similar mechanisms, then verify the daemon runs with minimal group privileges.

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
ArpwatchApplication
Affected:= 2.1a15

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
Network
Complexity
Low
Authentication
None
Confidentiality
Complete
Integrity
Complete
Availability
Complete

AV:N/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. Identify arpwatch version
    Run 'arpwatch -V' or check package manager output (rpm -q arpwatch or dpkg -l arpwatch)
    Affected if Version is 2.1a15 exactly (this specific version is affected)
  2. Locate running arpwatch process
    Run 'ps aux | grep arpwatch' to find the daemon process and note its PID
    Affected if Arpwatch daemon is currently running
  3. Check supplementary group memberships of running daemon
    Run 'id <pid>' or 'ps -o pid,rgid,egid,supgid -p <pid>' to view the real, effective, and supplementary group IDs of the arpwatch process
    Affected if The process shows supplementary group IDs (supgid) beyond the primary group - this indicates the vulnerability is present and active

You are affected if arpwatch version 2.1a15 is installed AND the running daemon process has supplementary group memberships listed beyond its primary group ID.

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

Recompile and deploy a patched version of arpwatch that properly drops all supplementary groups during daemon initialization using setgroups() or similar mechanisms, then verify the daemon runs with minimal group privileges.

Fix this in Arpwatch Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation4.0 h
  • Testing4.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
12.0 hours of engineering $2,080
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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-2012-2653 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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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
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  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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