CVE-2012-5519

high

Published 2012-11-20 · Modified 2026-04-29

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CVSS v3

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CVSS v4 NEW

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not yet in upstream

VIR risk

8.2

Description

CUPS 1.4.4, when running in certain Linux distributions such as Debian GNU/Linux, stores the web interface administrator key in /var/run/cups/certs/0 using certain permissions, which allows local users in the lpadmin group to read or write arbitrary files as root by leveraging the web interface.

Predictions

Exploit likelihood

20%

Patch ETA

—

Heuristic predictions, AS-IS, for prioritization only.

Mitigations

No mitigations published for this CVE yet.

The vendor-content worker queues fetches as references arrive (check back in a few minutes). Or — if you've already worked around this in production — publish your fix to the community-verified tier.

✚ Propose a mitigation on Community → Mitigations published via the community go through AI scoring + 2 human reviewers + 7-day silent objection window before landing here with source_tier=community-verified.

Exploits

Public proof-of-concept code below. AS-IS, for defenders and authorised testing only.

Metasploit modules

post_multi/escalate/cups_root_file_read rank 300

CUPS 1.6.1 Root File Read

Source fetch failed: fetch_error — view the original via the link above.

OS impact

Debian Fixed 6 releases

Version	Status	Fixed in
trixie	Fixed	`1.5.3-2.7`
sid	Fixed	`1.5.3-2.7`
forky	Fixed	`1.5.3-2.7`
bullseye	Fixed	`1.5.3-2.7`
bookworm	Fixed	`1.5.3-2.7`
—	Not affected	—

Application impact

Vendor	Product	Versions	Fixed
apple	cups	`1.4.4`

References

CWEs

CWE-264

Community-verified mitigations for this CVE will appear above when contributors publish them.

Verify integrity in audit chain (admin only). AS-IS.