Sudo LPE Vulnerabilities Resolved: What You Need to Know About CVE-2025-32462 and CVE-2025-32463

The Sudo utility has been identified as having two local privilege escalation vulnerabilities, CVE-2025-32462 and CVE-2025-32463. To mitigate these risks, it is recommended that Sudo be updated on Linux and macOS systems.

Sudo is a command-line utility found in Unix-like operating systems, allowing users with limited privileges to execute commands as another user, most often the root or administrator. It provides a way to grant temporary elevated privileges without requiring a user to log in as root. Users are authenticated with their password, and if permitted by the configuration file (/etc/sudoers), The system executes the command.

Rich Mirch of the Stratascale Cyber Research Unit reported both vulnerabilities.

• CVE-2025-32462: This is a low-severity elevation of privilege (EOP) vulnerability found in the Sudo host option. It has been present in Sudo’s code for over 12 years. The vulnerability lies in the fact that the -h or --host option, intended for listing a user’s Sudo privileges on a different host, could be used when running commands or editing files, thus bypassing its intended restriction. This affects the stable (v1.9.0 – 1.9.17) and legacy (v1.8.8 – 1.8.32) versions of Sudo.
• CVE-2025-32463: This is a critical-severity flaw affecting the Sudo chroot option. Local users could exploit it to gain root access. The vulnerability arises from a change introduced in Sudo v1.9.14, which allows an attacker to trick Sudo into loading an arbitrary shared library by creating a /etc/nsswitch.conf file under a user-specified root directory. This vulnerability impacts Sudo versions 1.9.14 to 1.9.17. Legacy versions are not affected as they lack the chroot feature.

These vulnerabilities can be exploited on popular Linux distributions, including Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, and SUSE, as well as macOS Sequoia.

Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities allows local users to escalate their privileges to root, gaining complete control over the affected system. CVE-2025-32462, in particular, requires no exploit under specific configurations, making it straightforward to leverage. CVE-2025-32463 allows attackers to load arbitrary shared libraries, leading to root access.

Local users exploit these vulnerabilities to achieve root access.

• TA0004 – Privilege Escalation: Exploiting the vulnerability to gain elevated permissions.
• T1068 – Exploitation for Privilege Escalation: Utilizing the Sudo flaws to escalate privileges to root.

To remediate these vulnerabilities, update Sudo to version 1.9.17p1.

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