Privilege escalation via Rowhammer-corrupted authentication values
Published Dec 22, 2023 · Updated Nov 4, 2025
Fault injection in Sudo before 1.9.15 allows local users to bypass authentication or escalate privileges through Rowhammer bit flips. Authentication and policy paths use negated comparisons against error or UNSPEC values, so a one-bit flip can become an accepted result. Exploitation requires local code execution, Rowhammer-susceptible DRAM, memory co-location, and precise timing; successful injection can authorize a command as root.
Summary
What happened
Fault injection in Sudo before 1.9.15 allows local users to bypass authentication or escalate privileges through Rowhammer bit flips. Authentication and policy paths use negated comparisons against error or UNSPEC values, so a one-bit flip can become an accepted result. Exploitation requires local code execution, Rowhammer-susceptible DRAM, memory co-location, and precise timing; successful injection can authorize a command as root.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2023-42465
- Published
- Dec 22, 2023
- Updated
- Nov 4, 2025
- Vendor
- Unknown vendor
- Product
- Unknown product
- Classifications
- T1068
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Dec 22, 2023CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Nov 4, 2025Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Affected products and versions are unavailable in this record.
Published CVSS scores
CVSS describes severity. EPSS estimates exploitation probability.
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
- Mayhem Sudo authentication-bypass demonstrationproof of concept · demonstrated
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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