CVE-2020-8833 - CVE House
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Status published Medium CVE-2020-8833

Apport race condition in crash report permissions

Vulnerability Description

Time-of-check Time-of-use Race Condition vulnerability on crash report ownership change in Apport allows for a possible privilege escalation opportunity. If fs.protected_symlinks is disabled, this can be exploited between the os.open and os.chown calls when the Apport cron script clears out crash files of size 0. A symlink with the same name as the deleted file can then be created upon which chown will be called, changing the file owner to root. Fixed in versions 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.23, 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.14, 2.20.11-0ubuntu8.8 and 2.20.11-0ubuntu22.

Impact Analysis

Refer to official advisory for detailed impact metrics.

Remediation

Ensure systems are updated to the latest vendor-supplied patch levels.

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Credits & Attribution

The following person or organization is credited with identifying this vulnerability, as recorded in the NVD database:

  • Maximilien Bourgeteau

Affected Vendor

Affected Software

Apport
Vulnerable Versions:
2.20.1, 2.20.9, 2.20.11

Timeline

Official Publish: April 22nd, 2020
Last Modified: September 16th, 2024
Added to House: July 21st, 2026

CVSS Vectors

V3: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N

Weaknesses (CWE)