Detections
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Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2017-12635

critical Nessus Plugin ID 260684

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Synopsis

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed with a vulnerability that the vendor indicates will not be patched.

Description

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed that are impacted by a vulnerability without a vendor supplied patch available.

 - Due to differences in the Erlang-based JSON parser and JavaScript-based JSON parser, it is possible in Apache CouchDB before 1.7.0 and 2.x before 2.1.1 to submit _users documents with duplicate keys for 'roles' used for access control within the database, including the special case '_admin' role, that denotes administrative users. In combination with CVE-2017-12636 (Remote Code Execution), this can be used to give non-admin users access to arbitrary shell commands on the server as the database system user. The JSON parser differences result in behaviour that if two 'roles' keys are available in the JSON, the second one will be used for authorising the document write, but the first 'roles' key is used for subsequent authorization for the newly created user. By design, users can not assign themselves roles. The vulnerability allows non-admin users to give themselves admin privileges. (CVE-2017-12635)

Note that Nessus relies on the presence of the package as reported by the vendor.

Solution

There is no known solution at this time.

See Also

https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2017-12635

Plugin Details

Severity: Critical

ID: 260684

File Name: unpatched_CVE_2017_12635.nasl

Version: 1.1

Type: local

Agent: unix

Family: Misc.

Published: 9/2/2025

Updated: 9/2/2025

Supported Sensors: Frictionless Assessment AWS, Frictionless Assessment Azure, Frictionless Assessment Agent, Nessus Agent, Agentless Assessment, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: High

Score: 7.4

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Critical

Base Score: 10

Temporal Score: 8.3

Vector: CVSS2#AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2017-12635

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Critical

Base Score: 9.8

Temporal Score: 9.1

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

Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:F/RL:O/RC:C

Vulnerability Information

CPE: cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:16.04:-:lts, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:couchdb

Required KB Items: Host/local_checks_enabled, Host/cpu, global_settings/vendor_unpatched, Host/OS/identifier

Exploit Available: true

Exploit Ease: Exploits are available

Vulnerability Publication Date: 11/14/2017

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2017-12635