CVE-2023-3972
Redhat Enterprise Linux Server For Power Little Endian Update Services For Sap Solutions 8.1 … 9.2
Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HCVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.
Summary
CVE-2023-3972 is a high-severity Creation of Temporary File in Directory with Insecure Permissions (CWE-379) vulnerability in Redhat Enterprise Linux Server For Power Little Endian Update Services For Sap Solutions. Its CVSS base score is 7.8 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Steganography (T1001.002); ranked at the 18th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2023-44597
Vulnerability Data
A vulnerability was found in insights-client. This security issue occurs because of insecure file operations or unsafe handling of temporary files and directories that lead to local privilege escalation. Before the insights-client has been registered on the system by root,…
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an unprivileged local user or attacker could create the /var/tmp/insights-client directory (owning the directory with read, write, and execute permissions) on the system. After the insights-client is registered by root, an attacker could then control the directory content that insights are using by putting malicious scripts into it and executing arbitrary code as root (trivially bypassing SELinux protections because insights processes are allowed to disable SELinux system-wide).
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Control response
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- 1 hardening rule · 1 OS baseline
V15.4.2
Likely Mitigating Controls AI
Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.
Controls whether organization resources are exposed to external system spheres by permitting or prohibiting their use.
The control ensures information is not released into a security sphere where the recipient lacks matching access authorizations.
The control ensures information resources are not exposed to the incorrect (public) sphere through review and authorization.
Protects against data mining that would expose resources to unauthorized spheres by enforcing detection and controls.
Restricts information flows to ensure resources are not exposed to incorrect or unauthorized spheres.
Controlling internal connections prevents exposure of resources to unintended internal spheres.
Knowing exact processing and storage locations helps avoid exposure of resources to incorrect spheres.
The control prevents exposure of the media resource to the wrong security sphere.
Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Secure SDLC practices directly prevent developers from writing code that creates temp files in insecure directories.
Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
A.8.26 only requires that security requirements (including for file permissions) be identified and specified during development or acquisition; it does not itself mandate, design, or implement the secure creation of temporary files that would remove the CWE-379 flaw from the resulting product.
A.8.27 mandates security-by-design, hardening, least privilege, default-deny and distrust-external-input principles plus design reviews that can catch and block insecure temp-file permissions during architecture and implementation; this stops exploitation for many but not all instances (e.g. third-party libraries, runtime OS defaults, or post-deployment changes outside the engineering process).
Secure coding standards directly require safe temporary-file creation with restrictive permissions.
Hardening callouts derived
Configuration rules from DISA STIG baselines that bear on weaknesses of the type cited by this CVE. Each rule is shown with the relationship its mapping actually records, against the CWE it was authored against. Derived via CVE→CWE over `controls_xwalks` (higher-evidence rows only; rows rated `none` are excluded).
Oracle Linux 8 (1 rule)
- V-248577 OL 8 must enable kernel parameters to enforce Discretionary Access Control (DAC) on symlinks. blocks CWE-379