CVE-2015-3246

CRITICALPre-NVD 7.49.0▲
EchelonGraph scoreHIGH confidence

Score elevated to 9.0 because this CVE is listed on the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2026-08-26), indicating real-world exploitation has been confirmed by US federal agencies. CISA-ADP (Vulnrichment) CVSS v3.1 baseline 7.4 retained for reference (NVD's own analysis pending). Confidence: HIGH.

Triggered by: CISA KEV (actively exploited)
Sources: cisa-adp, cisa_kev, epss, ghsa
Trending — 6 sources updated this weekExploited in the wild
9.0EG
EchelonGraph verdictPatch nowTreat as an emergency — this is being exploited.
  • Actively exploited in the wild (CISA-KEV)
CISA-KEV: ExploitedEPSS PROB: 8.4%CVSS: 7.4Exploit: cisa kev · ssvc active · Metasploit · Exploit-DB (verified) · public exploitExposed services: Not assessed

A fix is available — apply it.

libuser before 0.56.13-8 and 0.60 before 0.60-7, as used in the userhelper program in the usermode package, directly modifies /etc/passwd, which allows local users to cause a denial of service (inconsistent file state) by causing an error during the modification. NOTE: this issue can be combined with CVE-2015-3245 to gain privileges.

CVSS v3
7.4
EG Score
9.0CRITICALhigh confidence
EG Risk
81
EG Risk 81/100CISA SSVC

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 computed
Severity90% × 45%
Exploitation100% × 40%
Automatability0% × 15%
CISA SSVC: Track at low, Attend at medium and Act at high mission impact.
Action: A fix is available. Apply it within your standard update timelines at low, sooner than that at medium and as soon as possible at high mission impact.
EPSS PROB
8.4%
EPSS %ILE
94th
KEV
⚠ Exploited

CISA SSVCTrack at low, Attend at medium and Act at high mission impact.

A fix is available. Apply it within your standard update timelines at low, sooner than that at medium and as soon as possible at high mission impact.

Exploitation active (CISA Vulnrichment) · Automatable no (CISA Vulnrichment) · Technical impact total (CISA Vulnrichment). Mission impact is CISA's Mission & Well-being decision point, and only you can judge it: high means the affected system is essential to your organisation's mission, or its compromise could cause irreversible harm to people. CISA's decision table

Published

August 11, 2015

Last Modified

October 2, 2026

Advisory Details (7)

Auto-updated Aug 26, 2026
🔬 Proof of concept available. Patch available. Sources: redhat.
generic🟡 PoC Available
https://www.qualys.com/2015/07/23/cve-2015-3245-cve-2015-3246/cve-2015-3245-cve-2015-3246.txt
generic🟡 PoC Available

Libuser - 'roothelper' Local Privilege Escalation (Metasploit) - Linux local Exploit

https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/44633/
redhatMentions a patch (unverified)

libuser vulnerabilities (CVE-2015-3245 and CVE-2015-3246) - Red Hat Customer Portal

Affected: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 and 7 are affected by these flaws. See the table below for links to respective security advisories

https://access.redhat.com/articles/1537873
generic
http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1033040
generic

CVE-2015-3246 - PSIRT.COM

http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/76022
generic
http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2015-1483.html
generic
http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2015-1482.html

Vendor Advisories for CVE-2015-3246(1)

These vendors published their own advisory mentioning this CVE — often with vendor-specific remediation steps + affected product lists not in NVD.

Patch Availability(2)

Vendor / EcosystemFix (by version range) / PatchReleasedSource
redhatlibuser-0:0.56.13-8.el6_72015-07-23redhat
redhatlibuser-0:0.60-7.ael7b_12015-07-23redhat

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)
PackageVulnerable rangeFix by version rangeDependents
libuser—
  • every version up to 1:0.62~dfsg-0.1: fixed in 1:0.62~dfsg-0.1
—
Debian:12(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFix by version rangeDependents
libuser—
  • every version up to 1:0.62~dfsg-0.1: fixed in 1:0.62~dfsg-0.1
—
Debian:13(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFix by version rangeDependents
libuser—
  • every version up to 1:0.62~dfsg-0.1: fixed in 1:0.62~dfsg-0.1
—
Debian:14(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFix by version rangeDependents
libuser—
  • every version up to 1:0.62~dfsg-0.1: fixed in 1:0.62~dfsg-0.1
—
Debian:7(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFix by version rangeDependents
libuser1:0.56.9.dfsg.1-1.2
  • every version up to 1:0.56.9.dfsg.1-1.2+deb7u1: fixed in 1:0.56.9.dfsg.1-1.2+deb7u1
—

Weakness Classification(2)

MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration — the root-cause categories this CVE belongs to.

All Vendor Advisories

(2)

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 105× in last 7d / 441× 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 730 total refreshes for this CVE.

  1. 2026-10-06 05:46 UTCNVD updatefirst tracked
  2. 2026-10-06 04:29 UTCVendor advisory
  3. 2026-10-06 04:29 UTCGHSA enrichment
  4. 2026-10-06 00:38 UTCVendor advisory
  5. 2026-10-06 00:38 UTCGHSA enrichment
  6. 2026-10-05 20:46 UTCEG score recompute
  7. 2026-10-05 20:46 UTCVendor advisory
  8. 2026-10-05 20:46 UTCGHSA enrichment
  9. 2026-10-05 17:38 UTCEPSS rescore
  10. 2026-10-05 16:55 UTCVendor advisory
  11. 2026-10-05 16:55 UTCGHSA enrichment
  12. 2026-10-05 13:05 UTCVendor advisory
  13. 2026-10-05 13:04 UTCGHSA enrichment
  14. 2026-10-05 09:11 UTCVendor advisory
  15. 2026-10-05 09:11 UTCGHSA enrichment
  16. 2026-10-05 05:17 UTCVendor advisory
  17. 2026-10-05 05:17 UTCGHSA enrichment
  18. 2026-10-05 01:26 UTCEG score recompute
  19. 2026-10-05 01:26 UTCVendor advisory
  20. 2026-10-05 01:26 UTCGHSA enrichment
  21. 2026-10-04 23:17 UTCEPSS rescore
  22. 2026-10-04 21:35 UTCVendor advisory
  23. 2026-10-04 21:35 UTCGHSA enrichment
  24. 2026-10-04 17:44 UTCVendor advisory
  25. 2026-10-04 17:44 UTCGHSA enrichment
Show 75 more
  1. 2026-10-04 13:50 UTCVendor advisory
  2. 2026-10-04 13:50 UTCGHSA enrichment
  3. 2026-10-04 09:59 UTCVendor advisory
  4. 2026-10-04 09:59 UTCGHSA enrichment
  5. 2026-10-04 06:07 UTCVendor advisory
  6. 2026-10-04 06:07 UTCGHSA enrichment
  7. 2026-10-04 02:16 UTCVendor advisory
  8. 2026-10-04 02:16 UTCGHSA enrichment
  9. 2026-10-03 22:25 UTCVendor advisory
  10. 2026-10-03 22:24 UTCGHSA enrichment
  11. 2026-10-03 18:32 UTCVendor advisory
  12. 2026-10-03 18:31 UTCGHSA enrichment
  13. 2026-10-03 14:39 UTCEG score recompute
  14. 2026-10-03 14:39 UTCVendor advisory
  15. 2026-10-03 14:39 UTCGHSA enrichment
  16. 2026-10-03 14:21 UTCEPSS rescore
  17. 2026-10-03 10:46 UTCVendor advisory
  18. 2026-10-03 10:46 UTCGHSA enrichment
  19. 2026-10-03 06:55 UTCVendor advisory
  20. 2026-10-03 06:55 UTCGHSA enrichment
  21. 2026-10-03 03:04 UTCVendor advisory
  22. 2026-10-03 03:04 UTCGHSA enrichment
  23. 2026-10-02 23:13 UTCVendor advisory
  24. 2026-10-02 23:12 UTCGHSA enrichment
  25. 2026-10-02 19:19 UTCEG score recompute
  26. 2026-10-02 19:19 UTCVendor advisory
  27. 2026-10-02 19:19 UTCGHSA enrichment
  28. 2026-10-02 15:28 UTCVendor advisory
  29. 2026-10-02 15:28 UTCGHSA enrichment
  30. 2026-10-02 11:37 UTCVendor advisory
  31. 2026-10-02 11:36 UTCGHSA enrichment
  32. 2026-10-02 10:48 UTCVendor advisory
  33. 2026-10-02 10:48 UTCGHSA enrichment
  34. 2026-10-02 06:56 UTCVendor advisory
  35. 2026-10-02 06:56 UTCGHSA enrichment
  36. 2026-10-02 03:05 UTCVendor advisory
  37. 2026-10-02 03:04 UTCGHSA enrichment
  38. 2026-10-01 23:12 UTCEG score recompute
  39. 2026-10-01 23:12 UTCVendor advisory
  40. 2026-10-01 23:12 UTCGHSA enrichment
  41. 2026-10-01 19:43 UTCEPSS rescore
  42. 2026-10-01 19:19 UTCEG score recompute
  43. 2026-10-01 19:19 UTCVendor advisory
  44. 2026-10-01 19:19 UTCGHSA enrichment
  45. 2026-10-01 18:20 UTCMITRE cvelistV5CVSS v3 → 7.4 · severity → HIGH
  46. 2026-10-01 18:10 UTCVendor advisory
  47. 2026-10-01 18:09 UTCGHSA enrichment
  48. 2026-10-01 14:14 UTCVendor advisory
  49. 2026-10-01 14:13 UTCGHSA enrichment
  50. 2026-10-01 10:22 UTCVendor advisory
  51. 2026-10-01 10:22 UTCGHSA enrichment
  52. 2026-10-01 06:31 UTCVendor advisory
  53. 2026-10-01 06:31 UTCGHSA enrichment
  54. 2026-10-01 02:40 UTCVendor advisory
  55. 2026-10-01 02:40 UTCGHSA enrichment
  56. 2026-09-30 22:49 UTCVendor advisory
  57. 2026-09-30 22:49 UTCGHSA enrichment
  58. 2026-09-30 18:58 UTCVendor advisory
  59. 2026-09-30 18:58 UTCGHSA enrichment
  60. 2026-09-30 15:07 UTCEG score recompute
  61. 2026-09-30 15:07 UTCVendor advisory
  62. 2026-09-30 15:07 UTCGHSA enrichment
  63. 2026-09-30 14:58 UTCEPSS rescore
  64. 2026-09-30 11:15 UTCVendor advisory
  65. 2026-09-30 11:15 UTCGHSA enrichment
  66. 2026-09-30 07:24 UTCVendor advisory
  67. 2026-09-30 07:24 UTCGHSA enrichment
  68. 2026-09-30 03:33 UTCVendor advisory
  69. 2026-09-30 03:32 UTCGHSA enrichment
  70. 2026-09-29 23:41 UTCVendor advisory
  71. 2026-09-29 23:41 UTCGHSA enrichment
  72. 2026-09-29 19:50 UTCVendor advisory
  73. 2026-09-29 19:49 UTCGHSA enrichment
  74. 2026-09-29 15:55 UTCEG score recompute
  75. 2026-09-29 15:55 UTCVendor advisory

Publicly available exploits

(3 references)

Working exploit code is in the public domain (1 Metasploit module) (2 Exploit-DB entries). Defenders should treat patch urgency accordingly — public PoCs typically lead to mass-exploitation within 24-72 hours.

  • Exploit-DBEDB-44633✓ verified
    First seen May 16, 2018

    Libuser - 'roothelper' Local Privilege Escalation (Metasploit)

    Open source ↗
  • Exploit-DBEDB-37706✓ verified
    First seen Jul 27, 2015

    Libuser Library - Multiple Vulnerabilities

    Open source ↗
  • Metasploitexploit/linux/local/libuser_roothelper_priv_esc✓ verified
    First seen Jul 24, 2015

    Libuser roothelper Privilege Escalation

    Open source ↗

Related CVEs(same product + same vendor + same CWE)

Same vendor

1 shown

redhat:RHSA-2015:1482

Frequently asked(6)

What is CVE-2015-3246?
CVE-2015-3246 is a critical vulnerability published on August 11, 2015. libuser before 0.56.13-8 and 0.60 before 0.60-7, as used in the userhelper program in the usermode package, directly modifies /etc/passwd, which allows local users to cause a denial of service (inconsistent file state) by causing an error during the modification. NOTE: this issue can be combined…
When was CVE-2015-3246 disclosed?
CVE-2015-3246 was first published on August 11, 2015, with the most recent update on October 2, 2026. EchelonGraph re-ingests CVE updates from NVD on a 2-hour cycle, so this page reflects the latest published state.
Is CVE-2015-3246 actively exploited?
Yes. CISA added CVE-2015-3246 to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on August 26, 2026, affecting Red Hat Libuser. KEV listing indicates confirmed exploitation in the wild; this CVE warrants immediate attention. A fix is available. Apply it.
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2015-3246?
CVE-2015-3246 has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.4 (CISA-ADP / Vulnrichment enrichment; NVD's own analysis pending). EchelonGraph synthesises NVD + CISA KEV + FIRST EPSS + GHSA into a combined EG score of 9.0 (CRITICAL).
Which products are affected by CVE-2015-3246?
CVE-2015-3246 affects Red Hat Libuser. The affected packages EchelonGraph has on record, with version ranges, are listed in the Affected Packages section of this page.
How do I remediate CVE-2015-3246?
A fix for CVE-2015-3246 is available: update to the fixed version the vendor names in its advisory. The vendor advisories EchelonGraph has for CVE-2015-3246 are linked in the Vendor Advisories panel on this page.

Dependency Blast Radius

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