RHEL 2.1 : pam (RHSA-2003:028)

high Nessus Plugin ID 12356

Synopsis

The remote Red Hat host is missing one or more security updates.

Description

Updated PAM packages are now available. These packages correct a bug in pam_xauth's handling of authorization data for the root user.

[Updated 12 March 2003] Added packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES and Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS

The pam_xauth module is used to forward xauth information from user to user in applications such as the su command.

Andreas Beck discovered that pam_xauth will forward authorization information from the root account to unprivileged users. This could be used by a local attacker to gain access to an administrator's X session. To exploit this vulnerability the attacker would have to get the administrator, as root, to use su to access the account belonging to the attacker.

Users of pam_xauth are advised to upgrade to these errata packages which contain a patch which adds ACL (access control list) functionality to pam_xauth and disallows root forwarding by default.

Thanks to Andreas Beck for reporting this issue.

Solution

Update the affected pam and / or pam-devel packages.

See Also

https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/cve-2002-1160

http://www.nessus.org/u?2dc810fc

https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2003:028

Plugin Details

Severity: High

ID: 12356

File Name: redhat-RHSA-2003-028.nasl

Version: 1.25

Type: local

Agent: unix

Published: 7/6/2004

Updated: 1/14/2021

Supported Sensors: Frictionless Assessment AWS, Frictionless Assessment Azure, Frictionless Assessment Agent, Nessus Agent, Agentless Assessment, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 5.9

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 7.2

Vector: CVSS2#AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:pam, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:pam-devel, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:2.1

Required KB Items: Host/local_checks_enabled, Host/RedHat/release, Host/RedHat/rpm-list, Host/cpu

Patch Publication Date: 3/19/2003

Vulnerability Publication Date: 2/19/2003

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2002-1160

RHSA: 2003:028