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ApportApplication · Canonical

CVE-2022-28653

HIGH · 7.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2025-01-31
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 2.21.0 or later.
See remediation →
84/100
Remediation priority · High
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
Users can consume unlimited disk space in /var/crash

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

This is a local resource exhaustion vulnerability where unprivileged users can generate unlimited crash dump files in the /var/crash directory, filling up available disk space and causing denial of service for the entire system.

MitigationImplement disk quotas or size limits on the /var/crash directory, and configure crash dump generation to respect system resource constraints.

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
ApportApplication
Affected:< 2.21.0

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
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

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

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

  1. Check if Apport is installed
    Run: which apport or dpkg -l | grep apport
    Affected if Apport is not installed, the system is not affected by this specific CVE
  2. Determine installed Apport version
    Run: apport-cli --version or dpkg -l apport
    Affected if Version is less than 2.21.0 (e.g., 2.20.x, 2.18.x, etc.)
  3. Verify /var/crash directory permissions
    Run: ls -la /var/crash and check if unprivileged users have write access (look for 'w' in group or other permissions)
    Affected if The directory is world-writable or group-writable for non-root users
  4. Check current crash dump disk usage
    Run: du -sh /var/crash or ls -lah /var/crash to see existing crash dump files and their sizes
    Affected if Directory contains numerous or large crash dump files that were not expected or authorized by an administrator

A system is affected if Apport version is below 2.21.0 AND the /var/crash directory allows unprivileged users to write crash dump files, potentially leading to disk exhaustion.

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.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 2.21.0 or later
Fixed in 2.21.0
Interim mitigation

Implement disk quotas or size limits on the /var/crash directory, and configure crash dump generation to respect system resource constraints.

Recommended fix High confidence

2.21.0 or later

  1. Check the current version of Apport installed: dpkg -l apport
  2. Update package lists: sudo apt-get update
  3. Upgrade Apport to the fixed version: sudo apt-get install --only-upgrade apport
  4. Verify the installed version is 2.21.0 or later: apport-cli --version or dpkg -l apport

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

Fix this in Apport Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation4.0 h
  • Testing2.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
9.0 hours of engineering $1,600
Get the upgrade done

An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $2,560.

Scan for this in your stack

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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-2022-28653 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