DSA-1709-1 shadow -- race condition

Debian Security Advisory

DSA-1709-1 shadow -- race condition

Date Reported:

21 Jan 2009

Affected Packages:

shadow

Vulnerable:

Yes

Security database references:

In the Debian bugtracking system: Bug 505271.
In Mitre's CVE dictionary: CVE-2008-5394.

More information:

Paul Szabo discovered that login, the system login tool, did not correctly handle symlinks while setting up tty permissions. If a local attacker were able to gain control of the system utmp file, they could cause login to change the ownership and permissions on arbitrary files, leading to a root privilege escalation.

For the stable distribution (etch), this problem has been fixed in version 4.0.18.1-7+etch4.

For the unstable distribution (sid), this problem has been fixed in version 4.1.1-6.

We recommend that you upgrade your shadow package.

Fixed in:

Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 (etch)

Source:

http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/s/shadow/shadow_4.0.18.1.orig.tar.gz

http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/s/shadow/shadow_4.0.18.1-7+etch4.diff.gz

http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/s/shadow/shadow_4.0.18.1-7+etch4.dsc

Alpha:

http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/s/shadow/login_4.0.18.1-7+etch4_alpha.deb

http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/s/shadow/passwd_4.0.18.1-7+etch4_alpha.deb

AMD64:

http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/s/shadow/passwd_4.0.18.1-7+etch4_amd64.deb

http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/s/shadow/login_4.0.18.1-7+etch4_amd64.deb

ARM:

http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/s/shadow/passwd_4.0.18.1-7+etch4_arm.deb

http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/s/shadow/login_4.0.18.1-7+etch4_arm.deb

HP Precision:

http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/s/shadow/passwd_4.0.18.1-7+etch4_hppa.deb

http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/s/shadow/login_4.0.18.1-7+etch4_hppa.deb

Intel IA-32:

http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/s/shadow/passwd_4.0.18.1-7+etch4_i386.deb

http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/s/shadow/login_4.0.18.1-7+etch4_i386.deb

Intel IA-64:

http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/s/shadow/passwd_4.0.18.1-7+etch4_ia64.deb

http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/s/shadow/login_4.0.18.1-7+etch4_ia64.deb

Big-endian MIPS:

http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/s/shadow/login_4.0.18.1-7+etch4_mips.deb

http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/s/shadow/passwd_4.0.18.1-7+etch4_mips.deb

Little-endian MIPS:

http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/s/shadow/passwd_4.0.18.1-7+etch4_mipsel.deb

http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/s/shadow/login_4.0.18.1-7+etch4_mipsel.deb

PowerPC:

http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/s/shadow/login_4.0.18.1-7+etch4_powerpc.deb

http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/s/shadow/passwd_4.0.18.1-7+etch4_powerpc.deb

IBM S/390:

http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/s/shadow/passwd_4.0.18.1-7+etch4_s390.deb

http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/s/shadow/login_4.0.18.1-7+etch4_s390.deb

Sun Sparc:

http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/s/shadow/login_4.0.18.1-7+etch4_sparc.deb

http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/s/shadow/passwd_4.0.18.1-7+etch4_sparc.deb

MD5 checksums of the listed files are available in the original advisory.