Apport reads PID files with elevated privileges
Vulnerability Description
Apport reads and writes information on a crashed process to /proc/pid with elevated privileges. Apport then determines which user the crashed process belongs to by reading /proc/pid through get_pid_info() in data/apport. An unprivileged user could exploit this to read information about a privileged running process by exploiting PID recycling. This information could then be used to obtain ASLR offsets for a process with an existing memory corruption vulnerability. The initial fix introduced regressions in the Python Apport library due to a missing argument in Report.add_proc_environ in apport/report.py. It also caused an autopkgtest failure when reading /proc/pid and with Python 2 compatibility by reading /proc maps. The initial and subsequent regression fixes are in 2.20.11-0ubuntu16, 2.20.11-0ubuntu8.6, 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.12, 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.22 and 2.14.1-0ubuntu3.29+esm3.
Impact Analysis
Refer to official advisory for detailed impact metrics.
Remediation
Ensure systems are updated to the latest vendor-supplied patch levels.
Am I Vulnerable?
Launch our assessment wizard to check if your infrastructure is exposed to • CVE-2019-15790
Credits & Attribution
The following person or organization is credited with identifying this vulnerability, as recorded in the NVD database:
- Kevin Backhouse
References
- https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/apport/+bug/1839795
- https://usn.ubuntu.com/4171-1/
- https://usn.ubuntu.com/4171-2/
- https://usn.ubuntu.com/4171-3/
- https://usn.ubuntu.com/4171-4/
- https://usn.ubuntu.com/4171-5/
- https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/apport/+bug/1850929
- https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/apport/+bug/1851806
- https://bugs.launchpad.net/apport/+bug/1854237
- http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/172858/Ubuntu-Apport-Whoopsie-DoS-Integer-Overflow.html
More from Canonical
View All →Affected Vendor
Canonical
View all reports →