vulnerability
Arch Linux: Privilege escalation (CVE-2020-28049)
| Severity | CVSS | Published | Added | Modified |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | (AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:N) | Nov 4, 2020 | Jul 11, 2025 | Mar 25, 2026 |
Severity
3
CVSS
(AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:N)
Published
Nov 4, 2020
Added
Jul 11, 2025
Modified
Mar 25, 2026
Description
A local privilege escalation has been discovered in the sddm display manager < 0.19.0. If the auth file is empty, X allows any local application (= any user on the system) to connect. This is currently the case until X wrote the display number to sddm and sddm used that to write the entry into the file.
Solution
arch-linux-upgrade-latest
References
Rapid7 Labs
2026 Global Threat Landscape Report
The predictive window has collapsed. Exploitation follows disclosure in days. See how attackers are accelerating and how to stay ahead.