5582 : IBM AIX lsfs Environment Path Local Privilege Escalation
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Views This Week	Views All Time	Added to OSVDB	Last Modified	Modified (since 2008)	Percent Complete
13	780	over 8 years ago	over 4 years ago	0 times	90%

Timeline

Disclosure Date	Exploit Publish Date
2001-02-23	2001-02-23

Keywords

SUID PATH

Description

AIX contains a flaw that may allow a malicious user to gain access to unauthorized privileges. The issue is triggered when the command lsfs is installed with the SUID bit and calls commands modified by an attacker. This flaw may lead to a loss of confidentiality and/or integrity.

Classification

Location: Local Access Required
Attack Type: Input Manipulation, Other
Impact: Loss of Confidentiality, Loss of Integrity, Loss of Availability
Exploit: Exploit Public
Disclosure: OSVDB Verified

Technical

The lsfs command uses relative path environment variables to locate the lslv and grep commands. By manipulating these environment variables to point to a trojaned binary, an attacker can cause the lsfs command to run arbitrary code. By default the lsfs command is installed with the setuid bit set. This allows the trojaned binary to be run with root privelages.

Note that the lsfs command is not always installed with SUID bit on the above versions.

Solution

Apply APAR IY16909 patch or upgrade to AIX 5.1 as both have been reported to fix this vulnerability. It is also possible to correct the flaw by implementing the following workaround:

Use the chmod -s command to remove the setuid bit from lsfs.

Products

International Business Machines Corporation	AIX	4.3.0
		4.3.1
		4.3.2
		4.3.3

References

CERT VU: 123651
CVE ID: 2001-0573 (see also: NVD)
Bugtraq ID: 6741
ISS X-Force ID: 7007
Vendor Specific Advisory URL: http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=isg1IY16909
Keyword: SUID PATH

Credit

IBM - IBM

CVSSv2 Score

CVSSv2 Base Score = 4.6
Source: nvd.nist.gov | Generated: 2003-12-31 | Disagree?

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