Bug 98391 - pam_timestamp_check.so privilege escalation
Summary: pam_timestamp_check.so privilege escalation
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED CURRENTRELEASE
Alias: None
Product: Red Hat Linux
Classification: Retired
Component: pam
Version: 9
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
medium
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Jindrich Novy
QA Contact:
URL: http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=full-...
Whiteboard:
: 98650 98651 104641 (view as bug list)
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2003-07-02 10:58 UTC by Mark J. Cox
Modified: 2013-07-02 22:58 UTC (History)
5 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2004-09-21 09:11:32 UTC
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description Mark J. Cox 2003-07-02 10:58:54 UTC
Reported to Bugtraq on Jul02 that pam_timestamp_check can be used to gain
privileges if a local attacker can create a file in /var/run/sudo.  The file
contents are not checked so any tmp file creation vulnerabilty can be used to
create such a file.

A solution would be to check for some particular content in the ticket file (as
any vulnerability that allows arbitrary contents to be written to arbitrary
files has greater security implications).

Comment 1 Mark J. Cox 2003-07-02 14:01:49 UTC
Just to clarify this issue: what the reporter found is that if you can find a
temporary file creation vulnerability which lets a user create an arbitrary
named file as root (for an example see
http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2003-039.html) then you can utilise the issue
found in the pam_timestamp_check module to gain root privileges.  


Comment 2 Mark J. Cox 2003-07-07 08:19:54 UTC
*** Bug 98651 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 3 Mark J. Cox 2003-07-07 08:23:22 UTC
We're working on an update where a key is created when first needed and stored
in the /var/run/sudo files along with the timestamp (so the file timestamp also
does not need to be trusted).  

Comment 4 Stephen Samuel 2003-07-13 13:06:57 UTC
This is somewhat related to bug #99058 (userhelper needs 'remember password' box)

Comment 5 Mark J. Cox 2004-04-30 09:41:06 UTC
*** Bug 104641 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 6 Jindrich Novy 2004-09-17 13:53:45 UTC
*** Bug 98650 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 7 Jindrich Novy 2004-09-21 09:11:32 UTC
This is already fixed in current releases.


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