CVE-2009-0034: High severity Todd Miller Sudo vulnerability

Published Jan 23, 2009
·
Updated

It was discovered that sudo's sudoers file parses does not correctly handle group specification in RunasUser. If group was specified in the list (using syntax %group, to allow some user to run commands as any member of the group) and the user was already member of the group, sudo actually allowed the user to run commands as arbitrary system user.

SuSE and upstream bug report: https://bugzilla.novell.com/showbug.cgi?id=468923 http://www.gratisoft.us/bugzilla/showbug.cgi?id=327

This issue was confirmed on multiple 1.6.9 sudo versions. Latest upstream 1.7.0 was reported not to be affected, 1.6.8p12 previously shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 was not affected as well. Problem was confirmed on 1.6.9p17 in RHEL5 and Fedora 10.

Upstream patch:

Index: parse.c =================================================================== RCS file: /home/cvs/courtesan/sudo/parse.c,v retrieving revision 1.160.2.21 diff -u -r1.160.2.21 parse.c --- parse.c 2 Nov 2008 14:35:53 -0000 1.160.2.21 +++ parse.c 23 Jan 2009 19:16:55 -0000 @@ -651,9 +651,11 @@ / If the user has a supplementary group vector, check it first. / - for (i = 0; i < userngroups; i++) { - if (grp->grgid == usergroups[i]) - return(TRUE); + if (strcmp(user, username) == 0) { + for (i = 0; i < userngroups; i++) { + if (grp->grgid == usergroups[i]) + return(TRUE); + } } if (grp->grmem != NULL) { for (cur = grp->grmem; cur; cur++) {

Other sources

parse.c in sudo 1.6.9p17 through 1.6.9p19 does not properly interpret a system group (aka %group) in the sudoers file during authorization decisions for a user who belongs to that group, which allows local users to leverage an applicable sudoers file and gain root privileges via a sudo command.

Red Hat

Affected Software

8 affected componentsFixes available
redhat/sudo<0:1.6.9p17-3.el5_3.1
0:1.6.9p17-3.el5_3.1
Todd Miller Sudo=1.6.9_p18
Todd Miller Sudo=1.6.9_p19
Todd Miller Sudo=1.6.9_p17
gratisoft sudo=1.6.9-p17
gratisoft sudo=1.6.9-p18
gratisoft sudo=1.6.9-p19
VMware ESX=4.0

Remediation

Recommended actions to resolve this vulnerability, in priority order.

  1. Upgrade

    Upgrade redhat/sudo to a version that resolves this vulnerability.

    Fixed in 0:1.6.9p17-3.el5_3.1

Event History

Jan 23, 2009
CVE Published
via Red Hat·12:00 AM
Jan 27, 2009
Data Sourced
via Red Hat·11:27 AM
DescriptionSeverityAffected Software
Jan 30, 2009
CVE Published
via MITRE·07:00 PM
Data Sourced
via MITRE·07:00 PM
Description
Data Sourced
via NVD·07:30 PM
DescriptionSeverityWeaknessAffected Software

Parent advisories

This vulnerability appears in the following advisories.

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Frequently Asked Questions

1

What is the severity of CVE-2009-0034?

CVE-2009-0034 is classified as a moderate severity vulnerability.

2

How do I fix CVE-2009-0034?

To fix CVE-2009-0034, upgrade to sudo version 1.6.9_p18 or later.

3

What systems are affected by CVE-2009-0034?

CVE-2009-0034 affects specific versions of the sudo package on Linux systems and VMware ESX 4.0.

4

What type of vulnerability is CVE-2009-0034?

CVE-2009-0034 is a privilege escalation vulnerability in the sudoers file handling.

5

Who discovered CVE-2009-0034?

CVE-2009-0034 was discovered by Todd Miller, the maintainer of sudo.

Contact

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