The hesiod_init function in lib/hesiod.c in Hesiod 3.2.1 compares EUID with UID to determine whether to use configurations from environment variables, which allows local users to gain privileges via the (1) HESIOD_CONFIG or (2) HES_DOMAIN environment variable and leveraging certain SUID/SGUID binary.

The read_config_file function in lib/hesiod.c in Hesiod 3.2.1 falls back to the ".athena.mit.edu" default domain when opening the configuration file fails, which allows remote attackers to gain root privileges by poisoning the DNS cache.