CVE-1999-1491: abuse.console in Red Hat 2.1 uses relative pathnames to find and execute the undrv program, which allows lo...

Security readout for executives and security teams

This is an old local weakness in Red Hat 2.1's abuse.console utility. It looked for a helper program using a relative path, so a local user could potentially cause it to run an attacker-controlled program. Exposure is mainly legacy systems with that utility present. Likely limited to obsolete Red Hat 2.1 environments or preserved systems running abuse.console. The bundle does not identify modern distributions, package names, or supported products as affected. Treat this as a legacy-system hygiene issue, not a modern internet-scale emergency based on available evidence. Prioritize if old Red Hat systems remain in production or shared-user environments. Mitigation focus: Inventory any Red Hat 2.1 or legacy abuse.console deployments.; Remove or disable abuse.console where it is not required.; Restrict local shell access on systems retaining the utility..

Prepared

Jul 1, 2026, 08:44 UTC (UTC+00:00)

Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.