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Medium

Security advisory

Type: advisorySources: OSVCVE: CVE-2018-12615

An issue was discovered in switchGroup() in agent/ExecHelper/ExecHelperMain.cpp in Phusion Passenger before 5.3.2. The set of groups (gidset) is not set correctly, leaving it up to randomness (i.e., uninitialized memory) which supplementary groups are actually being set while lowering privileges.

Products
Not specified
Affected versions
Not specified
Fixed versions
Not specified
CVEs
CVE-2018-12615
Confirmed fixed CVEs
Not specified
Updated in this feed
31 Oct 2026, 12:26 UTC · Revision 1

Source evidence

CVE-2018-12615

core-osv · Original source

Published 21 Jun 2018, 15:29 UTC

An issue was discovered in switchGroup() in agent/ExecHelper/ExecHelperMain.cpp in Phusion Passenger before 5.3.2. The set of groups (gidset) is not set correctly, leaving it up to randomness (i.e., uninitialized memory) which supplementary groups are actually being set while lowering privileges.

osv:CVE-2018-12615
Complete source record
{
  "id": "bff96cd272d4e797fefced032c15f7262eb19f695bac2511a97a4644ad4684ab",
  "url": "https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2018-12615",
  "method": "structured",
  "payload": {
    "kind": "advisory",
    "title": "CVE-2018-12615",
    "summary": "An issue was discovered in switchGroup() in agent/ExecHelper/ExecHelperMain.cpp in Phusion Passenger before 5.3.2. The set of groups (gidset) is not set correctly, leaving it up to randomness (i.e., uninitialized memory) which supplementary groups are actually being set while lowering privileges.",
    "evidence": "osv:CVE-2018-12615",
    "products": [],
    "severity": "medium",
    "structured": {
      "id": "CVE-2018-12615",
      "aliases": [
        "CVE-2018-12615",
        "GHSA-4284-jfhc-f854"
      ],
      "metrics": [
        {
          "type": "CVSS_V3",
          "score": "CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N"
        }
      ],
      "affected": [
        {
          "ranges": [
            {
              "repo": "https://github.com/phusion/passenger",
              "type": "GIT",
              "events": [
                {
                  "introduced": "0"
                },
                {
                  "fixed": "5e4d60575fadfd68913bd229990cb9f3feb393a9"
                },
                {
                  "fixed": "4e97fdb86d0a0141ec9a052c6e691fcd07bb45c8"
                }
              ],
              "database_specific": {
                "extracted_events": [
                  {
                    "cpe": "cpe:2.3:a:phusion:passenger:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
                    "range": [
                      {
                        "introduced": "0"
                      },
                      {
                        "fixed": "5.3.2"
                      }
                    ],
                    "source": "CPE_RANGE"
                  },
                  {
                    "range": [
                      {
                        "fixed": "4e97fdb86d0a0141ec9a052c6e691fcd07bb45c8"
                      }
                    ],
                    "source": "REFERENCES_COMMIT"
                  }
                ]
              }
            }
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          "versions": [
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          ],
          "database_specific": {
            "source": "https://storage.googleapis.com/cve-osv-conversion/osv-output/CVE-2018-12615.json",
            "vanir_signatures": [
              {
                "id": "CVE-2018-12615-3dfcd8a8",
                "digest": {
                  "length": 1347,
                  "function_hash": "332130151477633070032125895755766442709"
                },
                "source": "https://github.com/phusion/passenger/commit/4e97fdb86d0a0141ec9a052c6e691fcd07bb45c8",
                "target": {
                  "file": "src/agent/ExecHelper/ExecHelperMain.cpp",
                  "function": "switchGroup"
                },
                "deprecated": false,
                "signature_type": "Function",
                "signature_version": "v1"
              },
              {
                "id": "CVE-2018-12615-9620d7cb",
                "digest": {
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                "source": "https://github.com/phusion/passenger/commit/4e97fdb86d0a0141ec9a052c6e691fcd07bb45c8",
                "target": {
                  "file": "src/agent/ExecHelper/ExecHelperMain.cpp"
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                "deprecated": false,
                "signature_type": "Line",
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            ],
            "vanir_signatures_modified": "2026-10-20T13:32:58Z"
          }
        }
      ],
      "modified": "2026-10-20T13:32:58.991527630Z",
      "provider": "osv",
      "references": [
        "https://github.com/phusion/passenger/commit/4e97fdb86d0a0141ec9a052c6e691fcd07bb45c8"
      ],
      "provider_metadata": {}
    },
    "related_cves": [
      {
        "value": "CVE-2018-12615",
        "evidence": "/id"
      }
    ],
    "security_relevant": true,
    "severity_evidence": "/severity/0/score"
  },
  "source_id": "core-osv",
  "document_id": 387825,
  "published_at": "2018-06-21T15:29:00.367+00:00"
}