Anders Kaseorg and Evan Broder reported a flaw in the way sudo handled duplicated environment variables. When sudo set certain environment variables (such as PATH set to securepath value, or special sudo environment variables SUDO), the value overwrote first value from user's environment (if it had been preserved and had not removed previously due to envreset / envkeep / envdelete settings), but left following environment variables with the same name unchanged.
This problem can be used to override securepath setting from /etc/sudoers file for shell scripts executed using sudo, as bash uses last PATH environment variable value. In configurations where securepath is used to enforce sane PATH setting for shell scripts, this can allow users with the privileges to run some script using sudo to run arbitrary command with the privileges of the target user.
Upstream fixes to handle duplicated environment variables: http://www.sudo.ws/repos/sudo/rev/3057fde43cf0 http://www.sudo.ws/repos/sudo/rev/a09c6812eaec
This issue affects sudo packages shipped in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, however not the default configuration. In default configuration, no securepath is set. envreset is used by default, and PATH is not preserved during the environment reset (unlike the upstream sudo default).
The sudo packages in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and 4 do not allow setting securepath in the /etc/sudoers, there is no compile-time default for the securepath either. Whether the user PATH setting is preserved depends on envreset / envdelete configuration.
Current Fedora configuration specifies securepath, but also removes PATH from the environment by default.
sudo 1.6.x before 1.6.9p21, when the runasdefault option is used, does not properly set group memberships, which allows local users to gain privileges via a sudo command.
sudo 1.6.x before 1.6.9p21 and 1.7.x before 1.7.2p4, when a pseudo-command is enabled, permits a match between the name of the pseudo-command and the name of an executable file in an arbitrary directory, which allows local users to gain privileges via a crafted executable file, as demonstrated by a file named sudoedit in a user's home directory.
sudo 1.6.0 through 1.6.3p7 does not properly clear the environment before calling the mail program, which could allow local users to gain root privileges by modifying environment variables and changing how the mail program is invoked.
sudo before 1.6.8p2 allows local users to execute arbitrary commands by using "()" style environment variables to create functions that have the same name as any program within the bash script that is called without using the program's full pathname.
Sudo before 1.6.8 p12, when the Perl taint flag is off, does not clear the (1) PERLLIB, (2) PERL5LIB, and (3) PERL5OPT environment variables, which allows limited local users to cause a Perl script to include and execute arbitrary library files that have the same name as library files that are included by the script.
Incomplete blacklist vulnerability in sudo 1.6.8 and earlier allows local users to gain privileges via the (1) SHELLOPTS and (2) PS4 environment variables before executing a bash script on behalf of another user, which are not cleared even though other variables are.
Race condition in sudo 1.3.1 up to 1.6.8p8, when the ALL pseudo-command is used after a user entry in the sudoers file, allows local users to gain privileges via a symlink attack.
sudo 1.6.8 and other versions does not clear the PYTHONINSPECT environment variable, which allows limited local users to gain privileges via a Python script, a variant of CVE-2005-4158.
Multiple race conditions in the (1) Sudo monitor mode and (2) Sysjail policies in Systrace on NetBSD and OpenBSD allow local users to defeat system call interposition, and consequently bypass access control policy and auditing.