CVE-2016-6325: High severity Apache Tomcat vulnerability

It was discovered that Tomcat packages in certain versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux use incorrect permissions for /etc/sysconfig/tomcat configuration files. The file is writable to tomcat group (root:tomcat, 664). On systems using classic /etc/init.d init scripts (i.e. on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 and earlier), the file is sourced by the Tomcat init script and its content executed with root privileges when Tomcat service is started, stopped or restarted.

On Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 using systemd, the file is not longer directly executed with root privileges, but it's still used to initialize environment for the Tomcat service. This would not allow a malicious or compromised web application deployed on Tomcat and already running with tomcat user privileges to directly escalate privileges.

— Red Hat

The Tomcat package on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5 through 7, JBoss Web Server 3.0, and JBoss EWS 2 uses weak permissions for (1) /etc/sysconfig/tomcat and (2) /etc/tomcat/tomcat.conf, which allows local users to gain privileges by leveraging membership in the tomcat group.