Race condition in PulseAudio 0.9.9, 0.9.10, and 0.9.14 allows local users to gain privileges via vectors involving creation of a hard link, related to the application setting LD_BIND_NOW to 1, and then calling execv on the target of the /proc/self/exe symlink.
CVE-2009-1894
This CVE was only ever scored under CVSS v2.0. NVD CVSS v2.0 base 7.2 — v2 rates that HIGH (v2 bands: LOW 0.0–3.9 / MEDIUM 4.0–6.9 / HIGH 7.0–10.0; v2 has no CRITICAL band). Vector AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C. CVSS v2 is an older, coarser metric than v3.1/v4.0 (no Scope, no User Interaction, no Attack Requirements), so it is not directly comparable to a v3 or v4 score. NVD has never re-scored this record under v3. EPSS predicts 0.7% exploitation probability in the next 30 days, which is reflected in EG Risk but does not lift the v2 base. Confidence: LOW.
- Public exploit code is available (Exploit-DB (verified), public exploit)
A fix is available — apply it.
- CVSS v2.0 (legacy)
- 7.2HIGHNVD never assigned a CVSS v3 rating to this CVE
- EG Score
- 7.2(low)
- EG Risk
- 63(Track)EG Risk 63/100SSVC: Track
EG Risk is EchelonGraph's 0–100 priority score: it fuses intrinsic severity with real-world exploitation and automatability so you can rank equal-severity CVEs and fix the most dangerous first. Higher = act sooner. Distinct from the 0–10 EG Score (severity).
How it’s computedSeverity72% × 45%Exploitation65% × 40%Automatability30% × 15%Action: Routine — remediate on your standard cadence. - EPSS PROB
- 1%
- EPSS %ILE
- 52%
- KEV
- Not listed
Published
July 17, 2009
Last Modified
April 23, 2026
References (32)
- secalert@redhathttp://blog.cr0.org/2009/07/old-school-local-root-vulnerability-in.html
- secalert@redhathttp://secunia.com/advisories/35868
- secalert@redhathttp://secunia.com/advisories/35886
- secalert@redhathttp://secunia.com/advisories/35896
- secalert@redhathttp://security.gentoo.org/glsa/glsa-200907-13.xml
- secalert@redhathttp://taviso.decsystem.org/research.html
- secalert@redhathttp://www.akitasecurity.nl/advisory.php?id=AK20090602
- secalert@redhathttp://www.debian.org/security/2009/dsa-1838
- secalert@redhathttp://www.mandriva.com/security/advisories?name=MDVSA-2009:152
- secalert@redhathttp://www.mandriva.com/security/advisories?name=MDVSA-2009:171
- secalert@redhathttp://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/505052/100/0/threaded
- secalert@redhathttp://www.securityfocus.com/bid/35721
- secalert@redhathttp://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-804-1
- secalert@redhathttps://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/pulseaudio-0.9.10-1.el5.2
- secalert@redhathttps://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=510071
Patch Availability(1)
| Vendor / Ecosystem | Fixed in / Patch | Released | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| ubuntu | pulseaudio (0.9.10-1ubuntu1.1) @ hardy | 2026-05-30 | ubuntu |
Patches are aggregated from vendor advisories (Red Hat, Microsoft, Cisco, GitHub) and package ecosystems (OSV, GHSA). Multiple rows for the same upstream release have been deduplicated.
Affected Packages
(5 across 5 ecosystems)
Debian:11(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| pulseaudio | — | 0.9.15-4.1 | — |
Debian:12(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| pulseaudio | — | 0.9.15-4.1 | — |
Debian:13(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| pulseaudio | — | 0.9.15-4.1 | — |
Debian:14(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| pulseaudio | — | 0.9.15-4.1 | — |
Debian:5.0(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| pulseaudio | 0.9.10-3 | 0.9.10-3+lenny1 | — |
Weakness Classification(1)
MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration — the root-cause categories this CVE belongs to.
All Vendor Advisories
(1)
Every vendor that published an advisory referencing this CVE — pulled from our cve_vendor_advisories aggregation. Click any row for the vendor's original advisory page.
Data Freshness Timeline
(refreshed 2× in last 7d / 10× in last 30d)
Each row is a source pipeline that fetched or updated this CVE on that date, with what changed. For example, "NVD update" means NVD published or revised its analysis for this CVE; "MITRE cvelistV5" means we ingested or refreshed it from the CNA feed. Most recent first.
Showing the most recent 100 of 116 total refreshes for this CVE.
- 2026-08-25 13:43 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-19 16:58 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-15 01:24 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-09 21:39 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-08-09 13:41 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-08 16:31 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-06 13:41 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-08-03 10:28 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-30 16:22 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-30 01:26 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-26 13:38 UTCEG score recompute▲ 7.20
- 2026-07-25 14:12 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-24 22:11 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-07-24 14:12 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-23 14:14 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-23 00:59 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-07-23 00:37 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-07-23 00:03 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-07-22 21:42 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-07-22 14:03 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-21 15:20 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-20 17:03 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-20 17:03 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-18 09:59 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-16 16:58 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-07-15 16:54 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-15 16:54 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-15 01:55 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-13 22:25 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-13 06:07 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-11 08:22 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-11 08:22 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-09 19:04 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-08 15:10 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-07 17:12 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-07-06 16:23 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-06 02:19 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-06 02:19 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-05 02:26 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-05 02:26 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-04 06:27 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-01 15:02 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-30 23:19 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-28 14:03 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-28 04:52 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-28 04:52 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-27 03:05 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-25 13:46 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-25 13:46 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-24 14:02 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-24 14:02 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-23 21:29 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-23 21:29 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-22 14:22 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-22 14:22 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-21 14:53 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-21 01:56 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-21 01:56 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-19 19:22 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-19 19:22 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-19 04:43 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-06-18 17:49 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-18 17:49 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-17 17:49 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-17 17:49 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-16 17:49 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-16 17:49 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-15 17:44 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-14 23:14 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-14 23:14 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-13 22:57 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-12 23:08 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-12 23:08 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-10 22:14 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-10 13:17 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-08 14:13 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-07 15:22 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-07 15:22 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-06 13:44 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-06 13:44 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-06 13:44 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-05 22:44 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-05 22:44 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-05 06:07 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-04 13:09 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-04 13:09 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-02 20:10 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-02 20:10 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-01 13:49 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-01 13:49 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-31 22:28 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-31 22:28 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-31 00:13 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-31 00:13 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-30 16:06 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-05-30 16:06 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-05-30 16:06 UTCGHSA enrichment
- 2026-05-29 13:40 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-28 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-28 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
Publicly available exploits
(2 references)Working exploit code is in the public domain (2 Exploit-DB entries). Defenders should treat patch urgency accordingly — public PoCs typically lead to mass-exploitation within 24-72 hours.
- Exploit-DBEDB-9208✓ verifiedFirst seen Jul 20, 2009
PulseAudio setuid (Ubuntu 9.04 / Slackware 12.2.0) - Local Privilege Escalation
Open source ↗ - Exploit-DBEDB-9207✓ verifiedFirst seen Jul 20, 2009
PulseAudio setuid - Local Privilege Escalation
Open source ↗
Frequently asked(4)
What is CVE-2009-1894?
When was CVE-2009-1894 disclosed?
Is CVE-2009-1894 actively exploited?
How do I remediate CVE-2009-1894?
Dependency Blast Radius
See which npm, PyPI, Go, and Maven packages are affected by CVE-2009-1894
Is Your Infrastructure Affected by CVE-2009-1894?
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