CVE-2021-31523

medium

Published — · Modified —

CVSS v3

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CVSS v2

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VIR risk

5.5

Description

The Debian xscreensaver 5.42+dfsg1-1 package for XScreenSaver has cap_net_raw enabled for the /usr/libexec/xscreensaver/sonar file, which allows local users to gain privileges because this is arguably incompatible with the design of the Mesa 3D Graphics library dependency.

Predictions

Exploit likelihood

20%

Patch ETA

—

Heuristic predictions, AS-IS, for prioritization only.

Mitigations

vendor Authored 2026-05-27

Vendor advisory: debian — https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2021-31523

vendor Authored 2026-05-27

Vendor advisory: suse — https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2021-31523.html

OS impact

OS	Version	Status	Fixed in
arch		affected
sles		affected
debian	bookworm	fixed	`5.45+dfsg1-2`
debian	bullseye	fixed	`5.45+dfsg1-2`
debian	forky	fixed	`5.45+dfsg1-2`
debian	sid	fixed	`5.45+dfsg1-2`
debian	trixie	fixed	`5.45+dfsg1-2`

References

https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2021-31523.html
https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2021-31523

Verify integrity in audit chain (admin only). AS-IS.