GLSA 200606-07: Vixie Cron: Privilege Escalation

http://security.gentoo.org/

Severity:	high
Title:	Vixie Cron: Privilege Escalation
Date:	06/09/2006
Bugs:	#134194
ID:	200606-07

Synopsis

Vixie Cron allows local users to execute programs as root.

Background

Vixie Cron is a command scheduler with extended syntax over cron.

Affected packages

Package	Vulnerable	Unaffected	Architecture(s)
sys-process/vixie-cron	< 4.1-r9	>= 4.1-r9	All supported architectures

Description

Roman Veretelnikov discovered that Vixie Cron fails to properly check whether it can drop privileges accordingly if setuid() in do_command.c fails due to a user exceeding assigned resource limits.

Impact

Local users can execute code with root privileges by deliberately exceeding their assigned resource limits and then starting a command through Vixie Cron. This requires resource limits to be in place on the machine.

Workaround

There is no known workaround at this time.

Resolution

All Vixie Cron users should upgrade to the latest version:

    # emerge --sync
    # emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=sys-process/vixie-cron-4.1-r9"

References

CVE-2006-2607

Availability

This GLSA and any updates to it are available for viewing at the Gentoo Security Website: http://security.gentoo.org/glsa/glsa-200606-07.xml

Concerns?

Security is a primary focus of Gentoo Linux and ensuring the confidentiality and security of our users machines is of utmost importance to us. Any security concerns should be addressed to security@gentoo.org or alternatively, you may file a bug at https://bugs.gentoo.org.