CVE-2002-2180: The setitimer(2) system call in OpenBSD 2.0 through 3.1 does not properly check certain arguments, which al...

Security readout for executives and security teams

This is an old OpenBSD local privilege escalation issue. A user who already has local access to an affected system could abuse weak argument checking in setitimer(2) to write to kernel memory and possibly become root. Exposure is most likely limited to legacy OpenBSD 2.0-3.1 systems. Internet-facing exposure is not indicated; the issue requires local user access. Modern supported OpenBSD deployments are unlikely to be affected based on the cited version range. Prioritize remediation if any affected OpenBSD systems remain in use, especially shared or multi-user hosts. For most organizations, urgency is low-to-moderate because the affected releases are very old and exploitation requires local access. Mitigation focus: Identify and retire OpenBSD 2.0 through 3.1 systems.; Upgrade affected hosts to a supported OpenBSD release.; Review OpenBSD vendor guidance and applicable historical patches..

Prepared

Jul 11, 2026, 16:18 UTC (UTC+00:00)

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