CVE-2015-5231
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 · uneditedThe service daemon in CRIU does not properly restrict access to non-dumpable processes, which allows local users to obtain sensitive information via (1) process dumps or (2) ptrace access.
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 confidenceThe CRIU (Checkpoint/Restore In Userspace) service daemon fails to properly restrict access to non-dumpable processes, allowing local unprivileged users to obtain sensitive information through process dumps or ptrace attachments to protected processes.
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 dataall versions= 13.2CVSS 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:3.0/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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Check if CRIU is installedRun 'which criu' or 'rpm -qa | grep -i criu' (RHEL) or 'dpkg -l | grep -i criu' (Debian) to locate the criu binary and packageAffected if The criu package or binary is found on the system
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Identify running CRIU service or socketRun 'ps aux | grep criu' or check for /var/run/criu.socket or /var/run/criu.service using 'ls -la /var/run/ | grep criu'Affected if A CRIU daemon process, socket, or service is active and running
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Verify CRIU socket permissionsRun 'ls -la /var/run/criu.socket' or 'ls -la /var/run/criu.dump.log' (if exists) to check if the socket is world-writable or accessible by unprivileged usersAffected if The CRIU socket or control interface is accessible to non-root users (permissions show others have read/write or the socket is owned by a non-privileged group)
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Check for non-dumpable processes on the systemRun 'cat /proc/*/status 2>/dev/null | grep -E "^Name:|^Uid:"' and look for processes with Uid 0 (root) that could potentially be protected, or use 'ps aux | head -20' to enumerate running processesAffected if Privileged (root-owned) processes are running that could be targets for ptrace or dump operations via the CRIU interface
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Test unprivileged access to CRIU functionalityAs a non-root user, attempt 'criu check --all' or check if the user can invoke criu commands without error to verify if the daemon permits unprivileged accessAffected if A non-privileged user can successfully interact with the CRIU daemon or invoke CRIU operations without permission errors
If CRIU is installed and its daemon/socket is accessible to unprivileged users while privileged processes exist on the system, the environment is affected by this vulnerability.
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 access to the CRIU daemon to privileged users only, or disable the service if not required. Implement proper permission checks before allowing process dump or ptrace operations.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation3.0 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 $2,272.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2015-5231 — 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-2015-5231 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
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