SolarisOperating system · Oracle

CVE-2022-21416

MEDIUM · 5.0 CVSS v3.1 Published 2022-04-19
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
50/100
Remediation priority · Moderate

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
Vulnerability in the Oracle Solaris product of Oracle Systems (component: Utility). The supported version that is affected is 11. Easily exploitable vulnerability allows low privileged attacker with logon to the infrastructure where Oracle Solaris executes to compromise Oracle Solaris. Successful attacks require human interaction from a person other than the attacker. Successful attacks of this vulnerability can result in unauthorized creation, deletion or modification access to critical data or all Oracle Solaris accessible data. CVSS 3.1 Base Score 5.0 (Integrity impacts). CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N).

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 confidence

Local privilege escalation vulnerability in Oracle Solaris 11's Utility component allows a low-privileged attacker with physical/logon access to modify critical system data, but requires human interaction from another user to succeed.

MitigationApply the Oracle critical patch update for CVE-2022-21416 to Oracle Solaris 11; restrict local user privileges and monitor for suspicious activity involving the Utility component.

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
SolarisOperating system
Affected:= 11

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
Local
Complexity
Low
Privileges
Low
User interaction
Required
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
High
Availability
None

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/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 checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Confirm Oracle Solaris version
    Run 'uname -a' or 'cat /etc/release' to identify the Oracle Solaris version
    Affected if The system is running Oracle Solaris 11.x (the 11.x series)
  2. Verify low-privileged local users exist
    Run 'id' command to check current user privileges, and 'cut -d: -f1 /etc/passwd' to list local users
    Affected if A low-privileged local user account exists on the system
  3. Check for physical or console access exposure
    Review system access controls: check 'who' command for logged-in users, review '/var/adm/loginlog' for failed logins, and examine console/tty access policies
    Affected if Physical access or additional local user accounts with console login are present on the system
  4. Identify Utility component usage
    Review running processes and enabled services related to Oracle Solaris Utility component; check 'ps -ef' for utility-related processes
    Affected if Utility component processes are running or services are enabled on the system

The system is affected if it runs Oracle Solaris 11.x, has low-privileged local users, and an attacker with physical or logon access could potentially interact with another user to exploit the Utility component.

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

Apply the Oracle critical patch update for CVE-2022-21416 to Oracle Solaris 11; restrict local user privileges and monitor for suspicious activity involving the Utility component.

Fix this in Solaris Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation4.0 h
  • Testing3.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
10.0 hours of engineering $1,750
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Scan for this in your stack

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dbcve dependency scanner

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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-2022-21416 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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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
  • 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