{"id":28976,"date":"2025-04-22T09:41:43","date_gmt":"2025-04-22T09:41:43","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2025-09-26T20:58:54","modified_gmt":"2025-09-27T02:58:54","slug":"cve-2025-32438-local-privilege-escalation-vulnerability-in-make-initrd-ng","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-32438-local-privilege-escalation-vulnerability-in-make-initrd-ng\/","title":{"rendered":"<strong>CVE-2025-32438: Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability in make-initrd-ng<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Overview<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In this blog post, we will delve into the critical vulnerability identified as CVE-2025-32438. This vulnerability is a local privilege escalation flaw that affects all users of NixOS, a popular Linux distribution, through make-initrd-ng, a tool used for copying binaries and their dependencies. This is particularly concerning because an attacker can exploit this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2024-56406-buffer-overflow-vulnerability-in-perl-leading-to-potential-denial-of-service-and-code-execution\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"33144\">vulnerability to potentially<\/a> compromise a system or leak sensitive data. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-4335-privilege-escalation-vulnerability-in-woocommerce-multiple-addresses-plugin-for-wordpress\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"43718\">vulnerability is crucial to understand and address<\/a> because of its high severity score and the broad user base it affects.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Vulnerability Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>CVE ID: CVE-2025-32438<br \/>\nSeverity: High (8.8 CVSS Score)<br \/>\nAttack Vector: Local<br \/>\nPrivileges Required: Low<br \/>\nUser Interaction: Required<br \/>\nImpact: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2023-50350-broken-cryptographic-algorithm-leads-to-potential-data-leakage-in-hcl-dryice-myxalytics\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"33682\">Potential system compromise or data leakage<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Affected Products<\/strong><\/p><div id=\"ameeb-3195176407\" class=\"ameeb-content-2 ameeb-entity-placement\"><div style=\"border-left: 4px solid #555; padding-left: 20px; margin: 48px 0; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; color: #ffffff; line-height: 1.6; max-width: 700px;\">\r\n  <h2 style=\"margin-top: 0; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 600; display: flex; align-items: center;\">\r\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/chat\" style=\"display: inline-flex; align-items: center; margin-right: 8px;\">\r\n      <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Best-App-icon-Ameeba.png\" alt=\"Ameeba Chat Icon\" style=\"width: 40px; height: 40px;\" \/>\r\n    <\/a>\r\n    A new way to communicate\r\n  <\/h2>\r\n\r\n  <p style=\"margin-bottom: 12px;\">\r\n    Ameeba Chat is built on encrypted identity, not personal profiles.\r\n  <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <p style=\"margin-bottom: 16px;\">\r\n    Message, call, share files, and coordinate with identities kept separate.\r\n  <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <ul style=\"list-style: none; padding-left: 0; margin-bottom: 20px;\">\r\n    <li>\u2022 Encrypted identity<\/li>\r\n    <li>\u2022 Ameeba Chat authenticates access<\/li>\r\n    <li>\u2022 Aliases and categories<\/li>\r\n    <li>\u2022 End-to-end encrypted chat, calls, and files<\/li>\r\n    <li>\u2022 Secure notes for sensitive information<\/li>\r\n  <\/ul>\r\n\r\n  <p style=\"font-style: italic; font-weight: 600; margin-bottom: 24px;\">\r\n    Private communication, rethought.\r\n  <\/p>\r\n\r\n  <div style=\"display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; gap: 12px;\">\r\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/chat\/download\" style=\"background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; padding: 10px 20px; text-decoration: none; border-radius: 6px; font-weight: 500;\">Download Ameeba Chat<\/a>\r\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/chat\" style=\"border: 1px solid #ffffff; color: #ffffff; padding: 10px 20px; text-decoration: none; border-radius: 6px; font-weight: 500;\">Learn More<\/a>\r\n  <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\n<p>Product | Affected Versions<\/p>\n<p>NixOS | 24.11, 25.05 \/ unstable<\/p>\n<p><strong>How the Exploit Works<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-23389-improper-access-control-vulnerability-in-suse-rancher\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"33351\">vulnerability lies in the make-initrd-ng tool&#8217;s improper<\/a> handling of permissions in its copying process. When the systemd.shutdownRamfs.enable setting is enabled (which is the default), a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-1950-local-user-command-execution-vulnerability-in-ibm-hardware-management-console\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"40523\">local user can create a program that will be executed<\/a> by root during shutdown. If an attacker can manipulate this process, they can elevate their privileges to root level, which can <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2023-37297-vulnerability-in-ami-s-spx-leading-to-potential-system-compromise\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"33404\">lead to the potential compromise of the entire system<\/a> or data leakage.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Conceptual Example Code<\/strong><\/p><div id=\"ameeb-2509395316\" class=\"ameeb-content ameeb-entity-placement\"><div class=\"poptin-embedded\" data-id=\"f6b387694f681\"><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/div>\n<p>To illustrate, an attacker might create a malicious program as follows:<\/p>\n<pre><code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">#!\/bin\/bash\necho &quot;Malicious code here&quot; &gt; \/path\/to\/executable\nchmod +x \/path\/to\/executable<\/code><\/pre>\n<p>In the context of a shutdown sequence, this could be inserted into the shutdown process:<\/p>\n<pre><code class=\"\" data-line=\"\">#!\/bin\/bash\n\/path\/to\/executable\nshutdown -h now<\/code><\/pre>\n<p>This would <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2023-48243-critical-remote-code-execution-vulnerability-allowing-unauthorized-file-upload\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"34132\">allow the malicious program to be executed<\/a> with root privileges during the shutdown process.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mitigation Guidance<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Given the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2023-52307-high-severity-stack-overflow-vulnerability-in-paddlepaddle-prior-to-version-2-6-0\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"33936\">severity of this vulnerability<\/a>, it is highly recommended to apply the patches released for NixOS 24.11 and 25.05 \/ unstable. If patching is not immediately feasible, as a temporary mitigation, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-2563-privilege-escalation-vulnerability-in-user-registration-membership-wordpress-plugin\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"35829\">users can set systemd.shutdownRamfs.enable = false to disable the vulnerable<\/a> feature. Furthermore, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/cve-2025-31100-unrestricted-file-upload-leads-to-web-shell-deployment-in-mojoomla-school-management\/\"  data-wpil-monitor-id=\"84751\">deploying a well-configured Web<\/a> Application Firewall (WAF) or an Intrusion Detection System (IDS) can also help detect and block potential exploitation attempts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Overview In this blog post, we will delve into the critical vulnerability identified as CVE-2025-32438. This vulnerability is a local privilege escalation flaw that affects all users of NixOS, a popular Linux distribution, through make-initrd-ng, a tool used for copying binaries and their dependencies. This is particularly concerning because an attacker can exploit this vulnerability [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"vendor":[88],"product":[],"attack_vector":[76],"asset_type":[],"severity":[],"exploit_status":[],"class_list":["post-28976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","vendor-linux","attack_vector-privilege-escalation"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28976"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77536,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28976\/revisions\/77536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28976"},{"taxonomy":"vendor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vendor?post=28976"},{"taxonomy":"product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product?post=28976"},{"taxonomy":"attack_vector","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/attack_vector?post=28976"},{"taxonomy":"asset_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/asset_type?post=28976"},{"taxonomy":"severity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/severity?post=28976"},{"taxonomy":"exploit_status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameeba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exploit_status?post=28976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}