Quick answers
- Is CVE-1999-0132 exploited in the wild?
- No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of CVE-1999-0132 being exploited in the wild.
- How severe is CVE-1999-0132?
- Low severity, with a CVSS score of 2.1, published 15 August 1996.
- Which products and versions are affected?
- Sun Solaris 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4; Sun SunOS 5.0, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4; Generic vi; Generic ex.
- Is there a fix for CVE-1999-0132?
- No fixed version is recorded yet. Check the vendor's advisory in the references below. If you run it, Junglewise drafts a mitigation that fits your setup and applies it once you approve, with senior security engineers behind it.
- How is CVE-1999-0132 attacked?
- It is attacked with local access, in an operating system.
- Am I affected by CVE-1999-0132?
- Check whether you run Generic Ex or Generic Vi. Junglewise does that check for you around the clock: connect your code, cloud and domains, and it matches new vulnerabilities like this one against what you actually run and tells you when one reaches you.
Technical details
The Expreserve utility, a component of the vi and ex text editors used to recover files after a system crash or unexpected termination, contains a vulnerability that allows for arbitrary file overwriting. A local attacker can exploit this flaw to manipulate file preservation logic, leading to the overwriting of critical system files. Because Expreserve often runs with elevated privileges to manage recovery directories, this can be leveraged to achieve a privilege escalation to root. The vulnerability was notably present in several versions of SunOS and Solaris in the mid-1990s. Patching or updating the affected editor utilities is required to resolve the issue.
Affected products
- Sun Solaris 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4
- Sun SunOS 5.0, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4
- Generic vi
- Generic ex
Timeline
- 1996-08-15: advisory: NVD published date
- 1996-12-31: disclosed: CERT advisory published