CVE-2018-10361

HIGH

KTextEditor <5.45.0 - Privilege Escalation

Title source: llm

Description

An issue was discovered in KTextEditor 5.34.0 through 5.45.0. Insecure handling of temporary files in the KTextEditor's kauth_ktexteditor_helper service (as utilized in the Kate text editor) can allow other unprivileged users on the local system to gain root privileges. The attack occurs when one user (who has an unprivileged account but is also able to authenticate as root) writes a text file using Kate into a directory owned by a another unprivileged user. The latter unprivileged user conducts a symlink attack to achieve privilege escalation.

Scores

CVSS v3 7.8
EPSS 0.0004
EPSS Percentile 13.1%
Attack Vector LOCAL
CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Classification

CWE
CWE-668
Status published

Affected Products (1)

kde/ktexteditor < 5.45.0

Timeline

Published Apr 25, 2018
Tracked Since Feb 18, 2026