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Ubuntu 14.10 USN-2579-1: Critical Autofs Privilege Escalation

ubuntu
Calendar Grey April 27, 2015
Dist Ubuntu Esm H88
A vulnerability in autofs may lead to privilege escalation due to misconfigured program maps within the Ubuntu 14.10 environment.
autofs could be made to run programs as an administrator if program maps were configured.

Summary

autofs could be made to run programs as an administrator if program maps

were configured.

Software Description:

- autofs: kernel-based automounter for Linux

Details:

It was discovered that autofs incorrectly filtered environment variables

when using program maps. When program maps were configured, a local user

could use this issue to escalate privileges.

This update changes the default behaviour by adding a prefix to environment

variables. Sites using program maps will need to adapt to the new variable

names, or revert to the previous names by using a new configuration option

called FORCE_STANDARD_PROGRAM_MAP_ENV.

Topics%20covered

Topics Covered

security advisory privilege escalation Ubuntu vulnerability autofs administrator access environment variables

Update Instructions

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

Ubuntu 14.10:
  autofs                          5.0.8-1ubuntu1.1

After a standard system update you need to reboot your computer to make
all the necessary changes.

References

https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-2579-1

CVE-2014-8169

Severity
critical
Lowest
Low
Medium
High
Critical

April 27, 2015

Topics%20covered

Topics Covered

security advisory privilege escalation Ubuntu vulnerability autofs administrator access environment variables

Package Information

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/autofs/5.0.8-1ubuntu1.1

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