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Incorrect Permission AssignmentWeakness · CWE-732

CVE-2024-22029

HIGH · 7.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2024-10-16
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
80/100
Remediation priority · High
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
Insecure permissions in the packaging of tomcat allow local users that win a race during package installation to escalate to root

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 privilege escalation vulnerability in Apache Tomcat's package installation process. A race condition during package installation creates a window where local users can manipulate file permissions or ownership to gain root privileges. The insecure permissions in the package allow winning the race to inject or modify files that are installed with elevated privileges.

MitigationApply vendor security updates for Tomcat packages immediately. Ensure package installations occur in controlled environments and audit installed permissions on Tomcat binaries and scripts post-installation.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

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
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 checks

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

  1. Identify Tomcat installation and version
    Run 'dpkg -l | grep -i tomcat' (Debian/Ubuntu) or 'rpm -qa | grep -i tomcat' (RHEL/CentOS) to list installed Tomcat packages. Also check for Tomcat directories in /usr/share/tomcat* or /opt/tomcat*
    Affected if Tomcat is installed with a version that falls within the vulnerable range (prior to the patch) and the installation was performed via system packages
  2. Inspect file permissions on Tomcat binaries
    Execute 'ls -la /usr/share/tomcat*/bin/*.sh' and 'ls -la /etc/tomcat*/' to view permissions on startup scripts and configuration directories. Look for world-writable (rwxrwxrwx) or group-writable permissions on scripts that run as root
    Affected if Any Tomcat startup, shutdown, or service scripts are writable by non-root users, allowing privilege escalation via race condition
  3. Check ownership of Tomcat installation files
    Run 'find /usr/share/tomcat* -user root -perm -002' to find root-owned files with world-write permissions, or 'stat /usr/share/tomcat*/bin/*.sh' to verify ownership of critical scripts
    Affected if Root-owned Tomcat scripts or binaries have world-writable permissions, creating the race condition window described in the CVE
  4. Audit /tmp and installation directories for race condition artifacts
    Check /tmp, /var/tmp, and the Tomcat working directory for any newly created or modified files during/after installation: 'ls -la /tmp/*tomcat*' and review /var/log/tomcat*/ for installation anomalies
    Affected if Temporary files or installation artifacts with unexpected permissions exist in directories where the race condition could be exploited
  5. Verify package installation method and integrity
    Review package manager logs (apt history in /var/log/dpkg.log or yum history) to confirm Tomcat was installed via system package manager versus extracted tar.gz archives
    Affected if Tomcat was installed via system packages where the race condition during package installation could have been exploited

A defender is affected if Tomcat is installed via system packages in a vulnerable version range AND critical scripts/binaries are owned by root but writable by local users, enabling the race condition privilege escalation described in this CVE.

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 vendor security updates for Tomcat packages immediately. Ensure package installations occur in controlled environments and audit installed permissions on Tomcat binaries and scripts post-installation.

Have this fixed 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
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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-2024-22029 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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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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