Cloud Agent For LinuxApplication · Qualys

CVE-2022-29549

HIGH · 7.3 CVSS v3.1 Published 2022-08-18
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 2.5.548.2 or later.
See remediation →
73/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Public exploit

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
An issue was discovered in Qualys Cloud Agent 4.8.0-49. It executes programs at various full pathnames without first making ownership and permission checks (e.g., to help ensure that a program was installed by root) and without integrity checks (e.g., a checksum comparison against known legitimate programs). Also, the vendor recommendation is to install this agent software with root privileges. Thus, privilege escalation is possible on systems where any of these pathnames is controlled by a non-root user. An example is /opt/firebird/bin/isql, where the /opt/firebird directory is often owned by the firebird user.

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

A detailed technical summary for this CVE is being prepared.

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
Cloud Agent For LinuxApplication
Affected:< 2.5.548.2

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
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

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

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 2.5.548.2 or later
Fixed in 2.5.548.2
Recommended fix Moderate confidence

Qualys Cloud Agent for Linux version 2.5.548.2 or later

  1. 1. Identify the current version of Qualys Cloud Agent for Linux installed on the system using the package manager or agent binary (e.g., 'qualys-cloud-agent --version' or checking RPM/DEB package)
  2. 2. If the current version is below 2.5.548.2, schedule a maintenance window for the upgrade
  3. 3. For systems where the agent runs with root privileges, ensure that any third-party program paths referenced by the agent (such as /opt/firebird/bin/isql) are owned by root and have appropriate permissions (typically 755 or stricter) to prevent hijacking
  4. 4. Before upgrading, backup the agent configuration if customized
  5. 5. Upgrade the Qualys Cloud Agent to version 2.5.548.2 or later using the vendor's standard upgrade procedure (e.g., yum update, apt-get update, or the Qualys installation script)
  6. 6. After upgrade, verify the new version is running and the agent is properly registered
Caveat Standard upgrade - review Qualys release notes for any configuration or compatibility changes between your current version and 2.5.548.2

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

We can perform the upgrade in your staging environment and verify nothing breaks — typical engagement from $1,950. Get the upgrade done

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
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-2022-29549 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

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What belongs here
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  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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