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CVE-2023-22809

HIGH CVSS: 7.8 Published: 2023-01-18 Modified: 2026-06-17

Description

In Sudo before 1.9.12p2, the sudoedit (aka -e) feature mishandles extra arguments passed in the user-provided environment variables (SUDO_EDITOR, VISUAL, and EDITOR), allowing a local attacker to append arbitrary entries to the list of files to process. This can lead to privilege escalation. Affected versions are 1.8.0 through 1.9.12.p1. The problem exists because a user-specified editor may contain a "--" argument that defeats a protection mechanism, e.g., an EDITOR='vim -- /path/to/extra/file' value.

Affected Platforms

Sudo Project SudoDebian Debian LinuxFedoraproject FedoraApple Macos

Weakness Type

CWE-269, CWE-269

References