Re: Bug#559802: CVE-2009-3736 local privilege escalation
On Tue, 8 Dec 2009 03:13:06 +1100, Steffen Joeris wrote:
> > > > The following CVE (Common Vulnerabilities & Exposures) id was
> > > > published for libtool. I have determined that this package embeds a
> > > > vulnerable copy of the libtool source code. However, since this is a
> > > > mass bug filing (due to so many packages embedding libtool), I have not
> > > > had time to determine whether the vulnerable code is actually present
> > > > in any of the binary packages. Please determine whether this is the
> > > > case. If the package is not affected, please feel free to close the bug
> > > > with a message containing the details of what you did to check.
> > > >
> > > > CVE-2009-3736[0]:
> > > > | ltdl.c in libltdl in GNU Libtool 1.5.x, and 2.2.6 before 2.2.6b,
> > > > | attempts to open a .la file in the current working directory, which
> > > > | allows local users to gain privileges via a Trojan horse file.
> > > >
> > > > Note that this problem also affects etch and lenny, so if your package
> > > > is affected, please coordinate with the security team to release the
> > > > DSA for the affected packages.
>
> Is this different to all these python modules that include the working
> directory? When I had a quick look it smelled like these once, in which case
> none of the packages probably deserves a DSA and they can all be fixed through
> s-p-u/o-s-p-u (and can be urgency 'slow'), but I thought I'd ask first in case
> I misunderstood the issue.
So, as i interpret the issue, the difference here is that libtool will
load any and all .la and .a file available on the LD_LOAD_LIBRARY path;
whereas python will load modules in the current directory only if they
are specifically called from the script.
I have just recently realized that LD_LOAD_LIBRARY has a relatively
safe default that does not include the current working directory.
Given this fact, I believe that the impact is rather limited (only
users that have modified that LD_LOAD_LIBRARY path are affected; and
i'm sure there are those who have done this, but it is a minor subset
of all debian users).
Hence, I think that for any package embedding libtool, updates should
be pushed in stable-proposed-updates, rather than DSAs. As for libtool
itself, it may still make sense to issue a DSA.
If there is concurrence on this assessment, I will send a message along
these lines to all of the bugs that I submitted.
Mike
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