CONFERENCE CISO Forum Virtual Summit 2026 - View all Sessions
Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Vulnerabilities

CISA: Several Old Linux Vulnerabilities Exploited in Attacks

Several old Linux vulnerabilities for which there are no public reports of malicious exploitation have been added to CISA’s KEV catalog.

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has added several Linux and Linux-related flaws to its known exploited vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog.

The agency added seven new vulnerabilities to its KEV catalog on Friday: Ruckus AP remote code execution (CVE-2023-25717), Red Hat Polkit privilege escalation (CVE-2021-3560), Linux kernel privilege escalations (CVE-2014-0196 and CVE-2010-3904), Jenkins UI information disclosure (CVE-2015-5317), Apache Tomcat remote code execution (CVE-2016-8735), and an Oracle Java SE and JRockit issue (CVE-2016-3427).

The Ruckus product vulnerability has been exploited by a DDoS botnet named AndoryuBot. 

However, there do not appear to be any public reports describing exploitation of the other vulnerabilities added to CISA’s catalog. Technical details and proof-of-concept (PoC) exploits are available, which is not surprising considering that some of them have been known for a decade. 

One aspect all the vulnerabilities appear to have in common is their connection to Linux, which indicates that they might have been leveraged in attacks on Linux systems. NIST’s advisories for each security hole include references to advisories posted by various Linux distributions to describe impact of these flaws and the availability of patches. 

At least some of these issues may have been exploited in attacks targeting Android devices — Linux kernel vulnerabilities being exploited in Android attacks is not unheard of.

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

CISA also pointed out a connection between two of the vulnerabilities. The Apache Tomcat flaw exists because a component was “not updated to take account of Oracle’s fix for CVE-2016-3427”. 

However, it’s unclear if the weaknesses have been exploited by the same threat actor or whether multiple of these issues have been chained or used as part of the same attack.

The agency only adds a vulnerability to its catalog if it has reliable evidence of exploitation in the wild. It’s possible that it has privately obtained the information about active exploitation for these flaws.

This is not the first time CISA has been the first to sound the alarm regarding the exploitation of a Linux vulnerability. Nearly one year ago, the agency warned organizations about the vulnerability known as PwnKit being exploited. 

Related: 557 CVEs Added to CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog in 2022

Related: CISA Warns of Attacks Exploiting Oracle WebLogic Vulnerability Patched in January

Related: Three Innocuous Linux Vulnerabilities Chained to Obtain Full Root Privileges

Written By

Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is senior managing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher before starting a career in journalism in 2011. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering.

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing for the latest cybersecurity threats, trends, and expert insights.

Click to comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

NOW LIVE: CISO Forum 2026 Summit

Join as we bring together CISOs, senior cybersecurity executives, practitioners, industry experts, and other security leaders to share practical experience and examine the issues shaping enterprise cybersecurity strategy.

Register

Join to learn the four levels of architecting security into the agentic SDLC – from securing the code your developers' agents write to running a coordinated system of security agents you've built yourself.

Register

People on the Move

Cohere has appointed Jaya Baloo as CISO.

Jensen Huang has resigned as President and Chief Executive Officer at NVIDIA.

Sean Sweeney has become CIO of the City of Charleston, South Carolina.

More People On The Move

Expert Insights

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest cybersecurity news, threats, and expert insights. Unsubscribe at any time.