CVE-2013-4419: Medium severity red hat libguestfs vulnerability
libguestfs is a library for accessing and modifying guest disk images. It was found that guestfish, which enables shell scripting and command line access to libguestfs, insecurely created the temporary directory used to store the network socket when started in server mode (using the "--listen" option). If guestfish were run with the "--listen" option, a local attacker could use this flaw to intercept and modify other users' guestfish commands, allowing them to perform arbitrary guestfish actions (such as modifying virtual machines) with the privileges of a different user, or use this flaw to obtain authentication credentials.
Acknowledgements:
This issue was discovered by Michael Scherer of the Red Hat Regional IT team.
Other sources
The guestfish command in libguestfs 1.20.12, 1.22.7, and earlier, when using the --remote or --listen option, does not properly check the ownership of /tmp/.guestfish-$UID/ when creating a temporary socket file in this directory, which allows local users to write to the socket and execute arbitrary commands by creating /tmp/.guestfish-$UID/ in advance.
— MITRE
Affected Software
Remediation
Patch Available
Event History
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the severity of CVE-2013-4419?
CVE-2013-4419 has a moderate severity rating due to the insecure creation of temporary directories.
How do I fix CVE-2013-4419?
You can fix CVE-2013-4419 by updating libguestfs to version 1.20.12, 1.22.7, or 1.24 or later.
What types of systems are affected by CVE-2013-4419?
CVE-2013-4419 affects systems running libguestfs versions prior to 1.20.12, 1.22.7, or 1.24.
What does CVE-2013-4419 exploit?
CVE-2013-4419 exploits a vulnerability related to insecure temporary directory creation when libguestfs operates in server mode.
Is CVE-2013-4419 a remote or local vulnerability?
CVE-2013-4419 is considered a local vulnerability as it requires local access to exploit the insecure temporary directory.