High severity7.8OSV Advisory· Published Oct 3, 2016· Updated Jun 17, 2026
CVE-2016-1240
CVE-2016-1240
Description
The Tomcat init script in the tomcat7 package before 7.0.56-3+deb8u4 and tomcat8 package before 8.0.14-1+deb8u3 on Debian jessie and the tomcat6 and libtomcat6-java packages before 6.0.35-1ubuntu3.8 on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, the tomcat7 and libtomcat7-java packages before 7.0.52-1ubuntu0.7 on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, and tomcat8 and libtomcat8-java packages before 8.0.32-1ubuntu1.2 on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS allows local users with access to the tomcat account to gain root privileges via a symlink attack on the Catalina log file, as demonstrated by /var/log/tomcat7/catalina.out.
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Affected products
7Patches
Vulnerability mechanics
References
14- www.debian.org/security/2016/dsa-3669nvdThird Party Advisory
- www.debian.org/security/2016/dsa-3670nvdThird Party Advisory
- www.securitytracker.com/id/1036845nvdThird Party AdvisoryVDB Entry
- www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-3081-1nvdThird Party Advisory
- legalhackers.com/advisories/Tomcat-DebPkgs-Root-Privilege-Escalation-Exploit-CVE-2016-1240.htmlnvd
- packetstormsecurity.com/files/170857/Apache-Tomcat-On-Ubuntu-Log-Init-Privilege-Escalation.htmlnvd
- rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2017-0457.htmlnvd
- www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/539519/100/0/threadednvd
- www.securityfocus.com/bid/93263nvd
- access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2017:0455nvd
- access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2017:0456nvd
- security.gentoo.org/glsa/201705-09nvd
- security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20180731-0002/nvd
- www.exploit-db.com/exploits/40450/nvd
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