Vulnerability Database

359,603

Total vulnerabilities in the database

CVE-2026-54552 — sh

Improper Check for Dropped Privileges

Impact

The _uid option performed an incomplete privilege drop on Linux/Unix-like systems.

When sh was run from a process with elevated privileges, such as root, and a command was launched with _uid=<unprivileged user>, the child process changed its UID and primary GID but did not reset its supplementary groups. As a result, the child process could retain the parent process’s supplementary groups, potentially including privileged groups such as root, docker, disk, shadow, or sudo.

This could allow a subprocess that was expected to run with reduced privileges to access files or resources available to the original process’s supplementary groups. Users are impacted if they rely on _uid as a privilege boundary when launching commands from a privileged parent process.

Patches

Upgrade to version >= 2.2.4

Workarounds

Avoid using _uid when the user represents a less-privileged user.

CVSS v3:

  • Severity: High
  • Score: 7.9
  • AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:N

CWEs:

Frequently Asked Questions

A security vulnerability is a weakness in software, hardware, or configuration that can be exploited to compromise confidentiality, integrity, or availability. Many vulnerabilities are tracked as CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), which provide a standardized identifier so teams can coordinate patching, mitigation, and risk assessment across tools and vendors.

CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) estimates technical severity, but it doesn't automatically equal business risk. Prioritize using context like internet exposure, affected asset criticality, known exploitation (proof-of-concept or in-the-wild), and whether compensating controls exist. A "Medium" CVSS on an exposed, production system can be more urgent than a "Critical" on an isolated, non-production host.

A vulnerability is the underlying weakness. An exploit is the method or code used to take advantage of it. A zero-day is a vulnerability that is unknown to the vendor or has no publicly available fix when attackers begin using it. In practice, risk increases sharply when exploitation becomes reliable or widespread.

Recurring findings usually come from incomplete Asset Discovery, inconsistent patch management, inherited images, and configuration drift. In modern environments, you also need to watch the software supply chain: dependencies, containers, build pipelines, and third-party services can reintroduce the same weakness even after you patch a single host. Unknown or unmanaged assets (often called Shadow IT) are a common reason the same issues resurface.

Use a simple, repeatable triage model: focus first on externally exposed assets, high-value systems (identity, VPN, email, production), vulnerabilities with known exploits, and issues that enable remote code execution or privilege escalation. Then enforce patch SLAs and track progress using consistent metrics so remediation is steady, not reactive.

SynScan combines attack surface monitoring and continuous security auditing to keep your inventory current, flag high-impact vulnerabilities early, and help you turn raw findings into a practical remediation plan.