zsh: privilege escalation via environment variables
Published Feb 27, 2018
7.8
HIGHCVSS 3.0
EPSS 0.49%
Description
zsh before 5.0.7 allows evaluation of the initial values of integer variables imported from the environment (instead of treating them as literal numbers). That could allow local privilege escalation, under some specific and atypical conditions where zsh is being invoked in privilege-elevation contexts when the environment has not been properly sanitized, such as when zsh is invoked by sudo on systems where "env_reset" has been disabled.
Affected products
No data.
- ≤ 5.0.6
No data.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5
zsh
Will not fix
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
zsh
Will not fix
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
zsh
Will not fix
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
zsh
Not affected
| Product | Package | State | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 | zsh | Will not fix | n/a |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 | zsh | Will not fix | n/a |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 | zsh | Will not fix | n/a |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 | zsh | Not affected | n/a |
No package ranges for this CVE.
Remediation
Red Hat statement
Red Hat Product Security has rated this issue as having security impact of Low. This issue is not currently planned to be addressed in future updates. For additional information, refer to the Issue Severity Classification: https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/.
Red Hat mitigation
Don't allow environment variables 'OPTIND' and 'TRY_BLOCK_ERROR' to be inherited by shells called through zsh. Mitigated by default on Red Hat Enterprise Linux versions 5, 6 and 7, since this is the default configuration on those versions.
Metrics
No CVSS v4.0 score for this CVE.
No CVSS v3.1 score for this CVE.
CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
This CVE is not in the KEV list.
No CISA SSVC assessment for this CVE yet.
Estimated probability of exploitation in the wild in the next 30 days (FIRST EPSS). As of Oct 1, 2026.
Score over time
2022–2026- EPSS v2
- EPSS v3
- EPSS v4
- EPSS v5
Percentile over time
- EPSS v2
- EPSS v3
- EPSS v4
- EPSS v5
Table of values (9 key points)
Flat stretches are collapsed; showing up to 120 newest points.
| Date | Score | Percentile | Model |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 1, 2026 | 0.49% (0.00487) | 39.63th | v5 (v2026.06.15) |
| Jun 15, 2026 | 0.50% (0.00504) | 38.86th | v5 (v2026.06.15) |
| Mar 17, 2025 | 0.14% (0.00139) | 31.37th | v4 (v2025.03.14) |
| Dec 12, 2024 | 0.04% (0.00042) | 5.07th | v3 (v2023.03.01) |
| Mar 7, 2023 | 0.04% (0.00042) | 5.63th | v3 (v2023.03.01) |
| Mar 6, 2023 | 0.89% (0.00890) | 30.33th | v2 (v2022.01.01) |
| Sep 10, 2022 | 0.89% (0.00890) | 28.64th | v2 (v2022.01.01) |
| Apr 1, 2022 | 0.89% (0.00890) | 26.62th | v2 (v2022.01.01) |
| Feb 4, 2022 | 0.89% (0.00890) | 12.04th | v2 (v2022.01.01) |
References (7)
- http://zsh.sourceforge.net/releases.html x_refsource_MISCRelease NotesThird Party Advisory
- https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2014-10070 Vendor Advisory
- https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1549287 Issue Tracking
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2014-10070
- https://sourceforge.net/p/zsh/code/ci/546203a770cec329e73781c3c8ab1078390aee72 x_refsource_MISCPatchThird Party Advisory
- https://usn.ubuntu.com/3593-1/ vendor-advisoryx_refsource_UBUNTU
- https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2014-10070
| Link | Providers | Tags |
|---|---|---|
| http://zsh.sourceforge.net/releases.html | x_refsource_MISCRelease NotesThird Party Advisory | |
| https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2014-10070 | Vendor Advisory | |
| https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1549287 | Issue Tracking | |
| https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2014-10070 | ||
| https://sourceforge.net/p/zsh/code/ci/546203a770cec329e73781c3c8ab1078390aee72 | x_refsource_MISCPatchThird Party Advisory | |
| https://usn.ubuntu.com/3593-1/ | vendor-advisoryx_refsource_UBUNTU | |
| https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2014-10070 |
Change history (0)
No recorded changes yet.