USN-959-1: PAM vulnerability

Publication date

7 July 2010

Overview

Root privilege escalation via symlink following.


Packages

  • pam - Pluggable Authentication Modules library

Details

Denis Excoffier discovered that the PAM MOTD module in Ubuntu did
not correctly handle path permissions when creating user file stamps.
A local attacker could exploit this to gain root privilieges.

Denis Excoffier discovered that the PAM MOTD module in Ubuntu did
not correctly handle path permissions when creating user file stamps.
A local attacker could exploit this to gain root privilieges.

Update instructions

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

Learn more about how to get the fixes.

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

Ubuntu Release Package Version
9.10 karmic libpam-modules –  1.1.0-2ubuntu1.1
10.04 lucid libpam-modules –  1.1.1-2ubuntu5

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