Improper Privilege ManagementWeakness · CWE-269

CVE-2025-4636

HIGH · 7.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2025-05-30
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
Due to excessive privileges granted to the web user running the airpointer web platform, a malicious actor that gains control of the this user would be able to privilege escalate to the root 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 · moderate confidence

The airpointer web platform runs under a web user account that has been granted excessive system privileges. An attacker who gains control of this web user account (through any account compromise method) can leverage these elevated privileges to perform privilege escalation to the root user, achieving full system compromise.

MitigationRestrict the airpointer web service user to minimum necessary privileges using the principle of least privilege; remove unnecessary sudo/root permissions and run the web service under a dedicated, non-privileged user account.

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 the airpointer web service user
    Run 'ps aux | grep -i airpointer' or check the service file (e.g., /etc/systemd/system/airpointer.service) to find which user account the web service process runs under.
    Affected if The service runs under a user other than a dedicated low-privilege account (such as root, www-data with sudo access, or any user with administrative privileges).
  2. Check sudo permissions for the web service user
    Run 'sudo -l -U <service_user>' (e.g., sudo -l -U airpointer) to list all sudo permissions granted to the airpointer user account.
    Affected if The user has any sudo NOPASSWD entries or sudo permissions that allow execution of privileged commands.
  3. Review group memberships for excessive privileges
    Run 'id <service_user>' or 'getent group | grep <service_user>' to see which system groups the airpointer user belongs to.
    Affected if The user belongs to privileged groups such as sudo, wheel, root, or any group with access to system administration functions.
  4. Inspect service startup configuration
    Check the systemd service file or init script for the airpointer service (e.g., /etc/systemd/system/airpointer.service or /etc/init.d/airpointer) and verify the User= and Group= directives.
    Affected if The service is configured to run as root or as a user with elevated privileges.
  5. Review sudoers configuration for the web user
    Inspect /etc/sudoers and any files in /etc/sudoers.d/ for entries that grant the airpointer web user privileged command execution.
    Affected if There are any sudoers entries allowing the web service user to run commands as root without a password.

You are affected if the airpointer web platform runs under a user account that has sudo, root, or administrative group memberships that could enable privilege escalation.

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

Restrict the airpointer web service user to minimum necessary privileges using the principle of least privilege; remove unnecessary sudo/root permissions and run the web service under a dedicated, non-privileged user account.

Have this fixed Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation3.0 h
  • Implementation6.0 h
  • Testing3.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
14.0 hours of engineering $2,490
Get help mitigating

An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $3,984.

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2025-4636 — 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 sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2025-4636 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

Be the first to add a field note for this CVE — a mitigation you’ve verified, a version caveat, or a link to a working fix. Sign in above to contribute.

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