Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 15:08:02 +0200
From: Stefan Nordhausen <deletethis.nordhaus@informatik.hu-berlin.de>
To: bugtraq@securityfocus.com
Subject: Local root exploit in SuSE Linux 8.2Pro
Affected:=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0SuSE Linux 8.2Pro
Not affected:=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0SuSE Linux 7.3Pro, non-SuSE d=
istributions
Possibly affected:=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0other SuSE distributions
Vulnerable package:=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0susewm
Impact:=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0Local user can ga=
in root privileges
Exploit type:=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0Symlink attack
Release date:=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0October 6th 2003
Vendor status:=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0SuSE was contacted on September=
4th (> 1 month ago).
=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0No =
SuSE-patch yet.
A symlink vulnerability exists in the shell script=20
/sbin/conf.d/SuSEconfig.susewm, line 86. This shell script is part of the=20
"susewm" package. This package is required by the package "kdebase3", so if=
=20
KDE3 is installed on your system(s), you should be vulnerable.
This vulnerability can be used by a local attacker to gain root privileges.=
An=20
exploit has already been written by me, but I will not release it before=20
October 20th.
Workaround:
As there is no SuSE patch available yet, you will have to fix this yourself=
=2E=20
You can use the following quick'n'dirty patch to fix the issue. Note howeve=
r=20
that I am NOT responsible if you mess up your system! You should know what=
=20
you're doing!
In the mentioned script you should replace _every_ occurrence of
$r/tmp/susewm.$$
with the following:
$r/root/susewm.$$
It's not pretty, but it should work.
This advisory, contact information and the exploit can be found at=20
http://www.hu-berlin.de/~nordhaus/sec/vul/index.html
=2D-
You cannot spell "believe" without "lie".
