CVE-2018-16497
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 · uneditedIn Versa Analytics, the cron jobs are used for scheduling tasks by executing commands at specific dates and times on the server. If the job is run as the user root, there is a potential privilege escalation vulnerability. In this case, the job runs a script as root that is writable by users who are members of the versa group.
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 confidenceIn Versa Analytics, cron jobs running as root execute scripts that are writable by users belonging to the versa group. Any member of the versa group can modify these root-executed scripts to gain privileged code execution, 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 dataall versionsCVSS 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:3.1/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 if your user is a member of the versa groupRun the command 'groups' or 'id' to see which groups your user belongs to, or run 'getent group versa' to list all members of the versa groupAffected if Your user account is listed as a member of the versa group
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Identify cron jobs running as rootExamine the system crontab files: check /etc/crontab, /etc/cron.d/, /var/spool/cron/, and any Versa-specific cron directories under /opt/versa/ or /home/versa/. Run 'crontab -l -u root' if you have accessAffected if Any cron job is configured to run as the root user
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Locate scripts executed by root cron jobsFor each root cron job identified, extract the script path being executed. Examine the command field of each cron job entry to find the full path to any .sh, .py, or binary script being calledAffected if Root cron jobs execute scripts located in directories writable by the versa group or execute scripts owned by non-root users
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Verify script file permissionsFor each script path found, run 'ls -la <script_path>' to check ownership and permissions. Specifically look for group write permissions and whether the group owner is versaAffected if The script is owned by root, is executable by root cron, AND the versa group has write permission (permissions show 'rwxrwxr-x' or similar with group write bit set)
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 write permissions on cron-executed scripts to root only, or reconfigure cron jobs to run as non-privileged users with appropriate ownership and permissions.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation4.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2018-16497 — 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-2018-16497 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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- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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