2818 : Open UNIX/UnixWare procfs Privilege Escalation
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Info

Last Modified

8 months ago

Percent Complete

65%

Disclosure

Nov 12, 2003

Discovery

Oct 24, 2003

Dates

Exploit

Unknown

Solution

Unknown

Description

SCO UnixWare 7.1.1, 7.1.3, and Open UNIX 8.0.0 contain a flaw that may allow a malicious local user to escalate their privileges. The issue is that procfs descriptors are handled insecurely. This allows malicious users to bypass the protection on a setuid/setgid file's process address space image ('/proc/$PID/as') and manipulate it. It is possible, because of the flaw, for a local user to run arbitrary code as another local user, resulting in a loss of confidentiality, integrity, and/or availability.

Classification

Unknown or Incomplete

Technical

'/proc/$PID/as' contains the address space image of process $PID. It can be opened and accessed like any other file and be used to manipulate the process. The process owner also owns the 'as' file whose file permission is 600. For obvious reasons this doesn't apply to processes spawned from setuid and setgid binaries. This protection can be bypassed by first obtaining a descriptor to a process you own then let that process execve() a setuid binary. execve() will replace the process image, honor the setuid bit and the descriptor will remain open. Then there is just the matter of finding something interesting to write.

Solution

Upgrade to the latest packages, as it has been reported to fix this vulnerability. An upgrade is required as there are no known workarounds.

Products

SCO Group, Inc.
Watch-list
Open UNIX
Watch-list
8.0.0
UnixWare
Watch-list
7.1.1
7.1.3

References

Credit

Unknown or Incomplete

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