Privilege escalation via loading of libraries via RPATH DSTs with setuid programs.
USN-1009-1 fixed vulnerabilities in the GNU C library. Colin Watson discovered that the fixes were incomplete and introduced flaws with setuid programs loading libraries that used dynamic string tokens in their RPATH. If the “man” program was installed setuid, a local attacker could exploit this to gain “man” user privileges, potentially leading to further privilege escalations. Default Ubuntu installations were not affected.
12 January 2011
A security issue affects these releases of Ubuntu and its derivatives:
Privilege escalation via loading of libraries via RPATH DSTs with setuid programs.
USN-1009-1 fixed vulnerabilities in the GNU C library. Colin Watson discovered that the fixes were incomplete and introduced flaws with setuid programs loading libraries that used dynamic string tokens in their RPATH. If the “man” program was installed setuid, a local attacker could exploit this to gain “man” user privileges, potentially leading to further privilege escalations. Default Ubuntu installations were not affected.
Original advisory details:
Tavis Ormandy discovered multiple flaws in the GNU C Library’s handling of the LD_AUDIT environment variable when running a privileged binary. A local attacker could exploit this to gain root privileges. (CVE-2010-3847, CVE-2010-3856)
The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following package versions:
To update your system, please follow these instructions: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Security/Upgrades.
In general, a standard system update will make all the necessary changes.
Vulmon