Reference page — cumulative record through Monday, October 19, 2026 UTC. Reference pages update as the archive grows; only dated daily editions are immutable pages of record.

CVE-2023-26604

CVE-2023-26604HIGH

n/a n/a — systemd before 247 does not adequately block local privilege escalation for some Sudo configurations, e.g., plausible sudoers files in wh…

  AV  AC  PR  UI  S  C  I  A   CVSS    EPSS   %ile   KEV
   L   L   L   N  U  H  H  H    7.8   .0105   63.7     —

AFFECTED
  Product  Versions  Fixed
  n/a      n/a –     —

TIMELINE
  Feb 26  Reserved by mitre
  Mar 3   Published (CNA: mitre)
  Oct 14  EXPLOIT PUBLISHED — CVE-2023-26604. Public exploit reference added.

CWE-269 · CNA: mitre · CVSS v3.1 · 7 references · NVD status: Modified

Description

systemd before 247 does not adequately block local privilege escalation for some Sudo configurations, e.g., plausible sudoers files in which the "systemctl status" command may be executed. Specifically, systemd does not set LESSSECURE to 1, and thus other programs may be launched from the less program. This presents a substantial security risk when running systemctl from Sudo, because less executes as root when the terminal size is too small to show the complete systemctl output.

Lifecycle

Complete event history — 3 events, chronological
Date	Event	Detail
February 26, 2023	Reserved	Reserved by mitre
March 3, 2023	Published	Published (CNA: mitre)
October 14, 2026	EXPLOIT PUBLISHED	EXPLOIT PUBLISHED — CVE-2023-26604. Public exploit reference added.

Affected

Affected products and packages — 1 row
Vendor	Product / Package	Ecosystem	Version introduced	Fixed
n/a	n/a	—	n/a	—

Weaknesses

CWE-269

References (7)

http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/174130/systemd-246-Local-Root-Privilege-Escalation.html [Exploit, Third Party Advisory]
https://blog.compass-security.com/2012/10/dangerous-sudoers-entries-part-2-insecure-functionality/ [Exploit, Third Party Advisory]
https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/html/ssa-398330.html
https://github.com/systemd/systemd/blob/main/NEWS#L4335-L4340 [Release Notes]
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2023/03/msg00032.html [Mailing List, Third Party Advisory]
https://medium.com/%40zenmoviefornotification/saidov-maxim-cve-2023-26604-c1232a526ba7 [Third Party Advisory]
https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20230505-0009/ [Third Party Advisory]

Authoritative record: CVE-2023-26604 at cve.org

Weaknesses: CWE-269

About this page

This is a reference page, not a dated page of record. It assembles the complete lifecycle of CVE-2023-26604 from the CVE Program record, NVD enrichment, the CISA KEV catalog, EPSS, and OSV advisories. The box score's numbers (CVSS, EPSS, KEV status) are current as of Monday, October 19, 2026 UTC and are re-derived as the archive grows; only dated daily editions are immutable pages of record. The authoritative source for this identifier is cve.org.