CVE-2017-14312
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 · uneditedNagios Core through 4.3.4 initially executes /usr/sbin/nagios as root but supports configuration options in which this file is owned by a non-root account (and similarly can have nagios.cfg owned by a non-root account), which allows local users to gain privileges by leveraging access to this non-root account.
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 confidenceNagios Core through 4.3.4 runs its main binary (/usr/sbin/nagios) as root by default but allows configuration options where this binary and nagios.cfg can be owned by non-root accounts. A local user with access to such a non-root account can modify the nagios binary or configuration to execute arbitrary code with root privileges, achieving local 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<= 4.3.4CVSS 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
- Low
- Privileges
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
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 installed Nagios Core versionRun 'nagios --version' or check package manager (e.g., 'rpm -q nagios' or 'dpkg -l nagios') to determine if version is 4.3.4 or lowerAffected if Version is 4.3.4 or any earlier version of Nagios Core
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Verify ownership of the nagios binaryRun 'ls -la /usr/sbin/nagios' to check file ownershipAffected if The binary is owned by any user other than root
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Verify ownership of the nagios.cfg configuration fileLocate nagios.cfg (typically in /usr/local/nagios/etc/nagios.cfg or /etc/nagios/nagios.cfg) and run 'ls -la' on it to check ownershipAffected if The configuration file is owned by any user other than root
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Check permissions on the nagios binaryRun 'ls -la /usr/sbin/nagios' and review the permission bits (e.g., -rwxr-xr-x)Affected if Permissions allow write access by non-root users (e.g., world-writable or group-writable)
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Check permissions on nagios.cfg and the etc directoryRun 'ls -la' on nagios.cfg and its parent directory to verify restrictive permissionsAffected if Configuration files or the etc directory are writable by non-root users
Your environment is affected if Nagios Core version 4.3.4 or lower is installed AND either the /usr/sbin/nagios binary or nagios.cfg is owned by a non-root user or is writable by non-root users, allowing local privilege escalation.
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 dataEnsure /usr/sbin/nagios and nagios.cfg (along with all configuration files in etc/) are owned by root with restrictive permissions (e.g., 755 for binaries, 640 for configs), and verify no non-root user has write access to these files or directories.
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- Review / QA1.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2017-14312 — 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-2017-14312 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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