DSA-054-1 cron -- local root exploit

Debian Security Advisory

DSA-054-1 cron -- local root exploit

Date Reported:

07 May 2001

Affected Packages:

cron

Vulnerable:

Yes

Security database references:

In Mitre's CVE dictionary: CVE-2001-0559.

More information:

A recent (fall 2000) security fix to cron introduced an error in giving up privileges before invoking the editor. This was discovered by Sebastian Krahmer from SuSE. A malicious user could easily gain root access.

This has been fixed in version 3.0pl1-57.3 (or 3.0pl1-67 for unstable). No exploits are known to exist, but we recommend that you upgrade your cron packages immediately.

Fixed in:

Debian GNU/Linux 2.2 (potato)

Source:

http://security.debian.org/dists/stable/updates/main/source/cron_3.0pl1-57.3.diff.gz

http://security.debian.org/dists/stable/updates/main/source/cron_3.0pl1-57.3.dsc

http://security.debian.org/dists/stable/updates/main/source/cron_3.0pl1.orig.tar.gz

Alpha:

http://security.debian.org/dists/stable/updates/main/binary-alpha/cron_3.0pl1-57.3_alpha.deb

ARM:

http://security.debian.org/dists/stable/updates/main/binary-arm/cron_3.0pl1-57.3_arm.deb

Intel IA-32:

http://security.debian.org/dists/stable/updates/main/binary-i386/cron_3.0pl1-57.3_i386.deb

Motorola 680x0:

http://security.debian.org/dists/stable/updates/main/binary-m68k/cron_3.0pl1-57.3_m68k.deb

PowerPC:

http://security.debian.org/dists/stable/updates/main/binary-powerpc/cron_3.0pl1-57.3_powerpc.deb

Sun Sparc:

http://security.debian.org/dists/stable/updates/main/binary-sparc/cron_3.0pl1-57.3_sparc.deb

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