CVE-2018-16888

MEDIUMNVD 4.74.7—
EchelonGraph scoreMEDIUM confidence

Score 4.7 from GitHub Security Advisory published 2022-05-13. NVD baseline CVSS 4.7; sources differ by 0.0.

Triggered by: GitHub Security Advisory CVSS
Sources: epss, ghsa, nvd
4.7EG
EchelonGraph verdictMonitorLow exploitation likelihood right now — keep watching.
  • Lower severity and no public exploit yet
CISA-KEV: Not listedEPSS PROB: 0%CVSS: 4.7Exploit: None knownExposed: 0

A fix is available — apply it.

It was discovered systemd does not correctly check the content of PIDFile files before using it to kill processes. When a service is run from an unprivileged user (e.g. User field set in the service file), a local attacker who is able to write to the PIDFile of the mentioned service may use this flaw to trick systemd into killing other services and/or privileged processes. Versions before v237 are vulnerable.

CVSS v3
4.7
EG Score
4.7(medium)
EG Risk
26(Track)
EG Risk 26/100SSVC: 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 computed
Severity47% × 45%
Exploitation0% × 40%
Automatability30% × 15%
Action: Routine — remediate on your standard cadence.
EPSS PROB
0%
EPSS %ILE
22%
KEV
Not listed

Published

January 14, 2019

Last Modified

November 21, 2024

References (10)

Vendor Advisories for CVE-2018-16888(1)

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

Patch Availability(3)

Vendor / EcosystemFixed in / PatchReleasedSource
ubuntuudev-udeb (237-3ubuntu10.38) @ bionic2026-05-27ubuntu
redhatansible-tower-37/ansible-tower-memcached-rhel7:1.4.15-282020-02-18redhat
redhatsystemd-0:219-67.el72019-08-06redhat

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

(4 across 4 ecosystems)
Debian:11(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFixed inDependents
systemd—237-1—
Debian:12(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFixed inDependents
systemd—237-1—
Debian:13(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFixed inDependents
systemd—237-1—
Debian:14(1)
PackageVulnerable rangeFixed inDependents
systemd—237-1—

Weakness Classification(2)

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

Additional Vendor Advisories

(2)

Vendors that published advisories for this CVE beyond the curated set above. Broader coverage but minimal per-row detail — click through for the original advisory.

Data Freshness Timeline

(refreshed 7× in last 7d / 28× 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 149 total refreshes for this CVE.

  1. 2026-09-18 19:22 UTCEPSS rescore
  2. 2026-09-17 19:22 UTCEPSS rescore
  3. 2026-09-16 14:03 UTCEPSS rescore
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  10. 2026-09-08 19:04 UTCOSV refresh
  11. 2026-09-07 15:57 UTCEPSS rescore
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  1. 2026-08-22 03:37 UTCOSV refresh
  2. 2026-08-21 23:44 UTCEPSS rescore
  3. 2026-08-20 22:51 UTCEPSS rescore
  4. 2026-08-19 17:00 UTCEPSS rescore
  5. 2026-08-18 13:43 UTCEPSS rescore
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  7. 2026-08-16 14:51 UTCEPSS rescore
  8. 2026-08-16 02:10 UTCEPSS rescore
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  10. 2026-08-13 21:56 UTCEPSS rescore
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  18. 2026-08-06 07:24 UTCOSV refresh
  19. 2026-08-04 15:05 UTCEPSS rescore
  20. 2026-08-02 02:23 UTCEPSS rescore
  21. 2026-08-01 04:12 UTCEPSS rescore
  22. 2026-07-30 16:24 UTCEPSS rescore
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  24. 2026-07-28 15:32 UTCEPSS rescore
  25. 2026-07-26 14:51 UTCEPSS rescore
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  27. 2026-07-24 14:14 UTCEPSS rescore
  28. 2026-07-23 14:15 UTCEPSS rescore
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  30. 2026-07-23 01:34 UTCEG score recompute
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  32. 2026-07-22 14:04 UTCEPSS rescore
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  34. 2026-07-21 00:17 UTCOSV refresh
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  45. 2026-07-13 06:10 UTCEPSS rescore
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  48. 2026-07-09 19:06 UTCEPSS rescore
  49. 2026-07-07 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
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  51. 2026-07-06 16:24 UTCEPSS rescore
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  55. 2026-07-04 06:28 UTCEPSS rescore
  56. 2026-07-03 19:26 UTCOSV refresh
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  75. 2026-06-21 01:57 UTCEPSS rescore

Frequently asked(5)

What is CVE-2018-16888?
CVE-2018-16888 is a medium vulnerability published on January 14, 2019. It was discovered systemd does not correctly check the content of PIDFile files before using it to kill processes. When a service is run from an unprivileged user (e.g. User field set in the service file), a local attacker who is able to write to the PIDFile of the mentioned service may use this…
When was CVE-2018-16888 disclosed?
CVE-2018-16888 was first published in the National Vulnerability Database on January 14, 2019, with the most recent update on November 21, 2024. EchelonGraph re-ingests CVE updates from NVD on a 2-hour cycle, so this page reflects the latest published state.
Is CVE-2018-16888 actively exploited?
CVE-2018-16888 is not currently on CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. FIRST EPSS estimates a 0% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, which ranks it in the top 77.6% of all scored CVEs.
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2018-16888?
CVE-2018-16888 has a CVSS v3 base score of 4.7 (NVD).
How do I remediate CVE-2018-16888?
Patch to the fixed version published by the affected vendor. Where vendor advisories exist for CVE-2018-16888, EchelonGraph cross-links them in the Vendor Advisories panel below — those typically contain the canonical remediation steps, fixed version numbers, and any vendor-specific mitigations.

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