GLSA 200606-02: shadow: Privilege escalation

http://security.gentoo.org/

Severity:	normal
Title:	shadow: Privilege escalation
Date:	06/07/2006
Bugs:	#133615
ID:	200606-02

Synopsis

A security issue in shadow allows a local user to perform certain actions with escalated privileges.

Background

shadow provides a set of utilities to deal with user accounts.

Affected packages

Package	Vulnerable	Unaffected	Architecture(s)
sys-apps/shadow	< 4.0.15-r2	>= 4.0.15-r2	All supported architectures

Description

When the mailbox is created in useradd, the "open()" function does not receive the three arguments it expects while O_CREAT is present, which leads to random permissions on the created file, before fchmod() is executed.

Impact

Depending on the random permissions given to the mailbox file which is at this time owned by root, a local user may be able to open this file for reading or writing, or even executing it, maybe as the root user.

Workaround

There is no known workaround at this time.

Resolution

All shadow users should upgrade to the latest version:

    # emerge --sync
    # emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=sys-apps/shadow-4.0.15-r2"

References

CVE-2006-1174

Availability

This GLSA and any updates to it are available for viewing at the Gentoo Security Website: http://security.gentoo.org/glsa/glsa-200606-02.xml

Concerns?

Security is a primary focus of Gentoo Linux and ensuring the confidentiality and security of our users machines is of utmost importance to us. Any security concerns should be addressed to security@gentoo.org or alternatively, you may file a bug at https://bugs.gentoo.org.