Bug 878115 (CVE-2012-5535) - CVE-2012-5535 gnome-system-log: polkit policy too lax, allows reading arbitrary files on the system
Summary: CVE-2012-5535 gnome-system-log: polkit policy too lax, allows reading arbitra...
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED ERRATA
Alias: CVE-2012-5535
Product: Security Response
Classification: Other
Component: vulnerability
Version: unspecified
Hardware: Unspecified
OS: Unspecified
medium
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Red Hat Product Security
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2012-11-19 16:59 UTC by Miloslav Trmač
Modified: 2021-10-19 21:57 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2021-10-19 21:57:44 UTC
Embargoed:


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Description Miloslav Trmač 2012-11-19 16:59:06 UTC
gnome-system-log-3.6.0-1.fc18 is set up so that
> $ gnome-system-log
executes "logview" as root through pkexec, only asking for the invoking user's password (because the org.gnome.logview.config.date.pkexec.run (sic) action has default policy auth_self_keep).

Running an X11 application as root in a session of a completely unprivileged user is risky enough in itself; however logview also allows (via the "wheel" button/Open) opening any file on the system, including /etc/shadow.  This is at least a confidentiality violation; reading various authentication cookies or ssh private keys might even allow this to be amplified into a privilege escalation.

Please change the polkit policy to one of the auth_admin_* ones.

Comment 2 Vincent Danen 2012-11-20 07:02:39 UTC
And is currently in Fedora 17 testing:

https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/gnome-system-log-3.4.1-3.fc17

Comment 3 Vincent Danen 2012-11-20 07:06:18 UTC
Note that this is due to a patch specific to Fedora and should not affect other vendors.

Statement:

Not vulnerable.  This issue did not affect the versions of gnome-utils as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6 as they used usermode to request privileges, not pkexec.

Comment 4 Fedora Update System 2012-12-07 04:20:20 UTC
gnome-system-log-3.6.1-2.fc18 has been pushed to the Fedora 18 stable repository.  If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.

Comment 5 Fedora Update System 2012-12-09 05:55:44 UTC
gnome-system-log-3.4.1-3.fc17 has been pushed to the Fedora 17 stable repository.  If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.


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