Ubuntu 12.10 ESN-1654-1 Moderate: CUPS Privilege Escalation Risk

ubuntu

December 5, 2012

CUPS could be made to read files or run programs as an administrator.

Summary

CUPS could be made to read files or run programs as an administrator.

Software Description:

- cups: Common UNIX Printing System(tm)

- cupsys: Common UNIX Printing System(tm)

Details:

It was discovered that users in the lpadmin group could modify certain CUPS

configuration options to escalate privileges. An attacker could use this to

potentially gain root privileges.

Topics Covered

security advisory privilege escalation security fix cups ubuntu administrative access

Update Instructions

The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following
package versions:

Ubuntu 12.10:
  cups                            1.6.1-0ubuntu11.3

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS:
  cups                            1.5.3-0ubuntu5.1

Ubuntu 11.10:
  cups                            1.5.0-8ubuntu7.3

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS:
  cups                            1.4.3-1ubuntu1.9

Ubuntu 8.04 LTS:
  cupsys                          1.3.7-1ubuntu3.16

In general, a standard system update will make all the necessary changes.

This update adds the new cups-files.conf configuration file for privileged
CUPS settings. In certain customized environments, these settings may need
to be manually moved to this new file. For more information, please see the
updated documentation installed with this package and inspect the CUPS
error log.