CVE-2018-12028
Incorrect Access Control in Phusion Passenger
An Incorrect Access Control vulnerability in SpawningKit in Phusion Passenger 5.3.x before 5.3.2 allows a Passenger-managed malicious application, upon spawning a child process, to report an arbitrary different PID back to Passenger's process manager. If the malicious application then generates an error, it would cause Passenger's process manager to kill said reported arbitrary PID.
Attack profile
How easy it is to exploit
- Attack vector
- Local
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges needed
- None
- User interaction
- Required
What an attacker can affect
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
Exploit likelihood
What each source reports
NVD Score used
An Incorrect Access Control vulnerability in SpawningKit in Phusion Passenger 5.3.x before 5.3.2 allows a Passenger-managed malicious application, upon spawning a child process, to report an arbitrary different PID back to Passenger's process manager. If the malicious application then generates an error, it would cause Passenger's process manager to kill said reported arbitrary PID.
- Record
CVE-2018-12028- CVSS 3.0
- 7.8 High
CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H - CVSS 2.0
- 6.8 Medium
AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P - Weakness
- CWE-732
- Updated
- 2026-11-02
CVE List No score
An Incorrect Access Control vulnerability in SpawningKit in Phusion Passenger 5.3.x before 5.3.2 allows a Passenger-managed malicious application, upon spawning a child process, to report an arbitrary different PID back to Passenger's process manager. If the malicious application then generates an error, it would cause Passenger's process manager to kill said reported arbitrary PID.
- Record
CVE-2018-12028- Updated
- 2026-11-02
EUVDEUVD-2022-4386 No score
An Incorrect Access Control vulnerability in SpawningKit in Phusion Passenger 5.3.x before 5.3.2 allows a Passenger-managed malicious application, upon spawning a child process, to report an arbitrary different PID back to Passenger's process manager. If the malicious application then generates an error, it would cause Passenger's process manager to kill said reported arbitrary PID.
- Record
EUVD-2022-4386- Updated
- 2026-11-03
GitHub AdvisoriesGHSA-jjhj-8gx7-x836
Incorrect Access Control in Phusion Passenger
An Incorrect Access Control vulnerability in SpawningKit in Phusion Passenger 5.3.x before 5.3.2 allows a Passenger-managed malicious application, upon spawning a child process, to report an arbitrary different PID back to Passenger's process manager. If the malicious application then generates an error, it would cause Passenger's process manager to kill said reported arbitrary PID.
- Record
GHSA-jjhj-8gx7-x836- CVSS 3.0
- 7.8 High
CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H - Weakness
- CWE-732
- Updated
- 2026-11-02
OSV
An Incorrect Access Control vulnerability in SpawningKit in Phusion Passenger 5.3.x before 5.3.2 allows a Passenger-managed malicious application, upon spawning a child process, to report an arbitrary different PID back to Passenger's process manager. If the malicious application then generates an error, it would cause Passenger's process manager to kill said reported arbitrary PID.
- Record
CVE-2018-12028- CVSS 3.0
- 7.8 High
CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H - Updated
- 2026-11-02
OSVGHSA-jjhj-8gx7-x836
Incorrect Access Control in Phusion Passenger
An Incorrect Access Control vulnerability in SpawningKit in Phusion Passenger 5.3.x before 5.3.2 allows a Passenger-managed malicious application, upon spawning a child process, to report an arbitrary different PID back to Passenger's process manager. If the malicious application then generates an error, it would cause Passenger's process manager to kill said reported arbitrary PID.
- Record
GHSA-jjhj-8gx7-x836- CVSS 3.0
- 7.8 High
CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H - Weakness
- CWE-732
- Updated
- 2026-11-02
OSVUBUNTU-CVE-2018-12028
An Incorrect Access Control vulnerability in SpawningKit in Phusion Passenger 5.3.x before 5.3.2 allows a Passenger-managed malicious application, upon spawning a child process, to report an arbitrary different PID back to Passenger's process manager. If the malicious application then generates an error, it would cause Passenger's process manager to kill said reported arbitrary PID.
- Record
UBUNTU-CVE-2018-12028- CVSS 3.0
- 7.8 High
CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H - Updated
- 2026-11-02
Affected products
Affected packages
History
| Recorded | Changed | Sources |
|---|---|---|
| affected | ||
| aliases | EUVD | |
| first indexed | CVE List, GitHub Advisories, NVD, OSV |
Dates are when Every CVE recorded each change. Upstream dates may differ.
In short
CVE-2018-12028 is a high vulnerability (CVSS 7.8) in Phusion Passenger, published June 17, 2018. No source lists public exploit code. EPSS puts the chance of exploitation in the next 30 days at 0.89%, the 59th percentile. Fixed in passenger 5.3.2.
References
blog.phusion.nl/passenger-5-3-2
security.gentoo.org/glsa/201807-02
nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-12028
github.com/phusion/passenger/commit/1e7c82deb4901c438f583737d8c9f2aac264737c