A number of decade-old security vulnerabilities have been disclosed within the needrestart package deal put in by default in Ubuntu Server (since model 21.04) that might permit a neighborhood attacker to realize root privileges with out requiring consumer interplay.
The Qualys Risk Analysis Unit (TRU), which recognized and reported the failings early final month, stated they’re trivial to take advantage of, necessitating that customers transfer shortly to use the fixes. The vulnerabilities are believed to have existed because the introduction of interpreter assist in needrestart 0.8, which was launched on April 27, 2014.
“These needrestart exploits permit Native Privilege Escalation (LPE) which signifies that a neighborhood attacker is ready to acquire root privileges,” Ubuntu stated in an advisory, noting they’ve been addressed in model 3.8. “The vulnerabilities have an effect on Debian, Ubuntu, and different Linux distributions.”
Needrestart is a utility that scans a system to find out the companies that should be restarted after making use of shared library updates in a way that avoids an entire system reboot.
The 5 flaws are listed beneath –
- CVE-2024-48990 (CVSS rating: 7.8) – A vulnerability that enables native attackers to execute arbitrary code as root by tricking needrestart into operating the Python interpreter with an attacker-controlled PYTHONPATH atmosphere variable
- CVE-2024-48991 (CVSS rating: 7.8) – A vulnerability that enables native attackers to execute arbitrary code as root by successful a race situation and tricking needrestart into operating their very own, faux Python interpreter
- CVE-2024-48992 (CVSS rating: 7.8) – A vulnerability that enables native attackers to execute arbitrary code as root by tricking needrestart into operating the Ruby interpreter with an attacker-controlled RUBYLIB atmosphere variable
- CVE-2024-11003 (CVSS rating: 7.8) and CVE-2024-10224 (CVSS rating: 5.3) – Two vulnerabilities that enables a neighborhood attacker to execute arbitrary shell instructions as root by profiting from a difficulty within the libmodule-scandeps-perl package deal (earlier than model 1.36)
Profitable exploitation of the aforementioned shortcomings may permit a neighborhood attacker to set specifically crafted atmosphere variables for PYTHONPATH or RUBYLIB that might outcome within the execution of arbitrary code pointing to the risk actor’s atmosphere when needrestart is run.
“In CVE-2024-10224, […] attacker-controlled enter may trigger the Module::ScanDeps Perl module to run arbitrary shell instructions by open()ing a ‘pesky pipe’ (corresponding to by passing ‘instructions|’ as a filename) or by passing arbitrary strings to eval(),” Ubuntu famous.
“By itself, this isn’t sufficient for native privilege escalation. Nonetheless, in CVE-2024-11003 needrestart passes attacker-controlled enter (filenames) to Module::ScanDeps and triggers CVE-2024-10224 with root privilege. The repair for CVE-2024-11003 removes needrestart’s dependency on Module::ScanDeps.”
Whereas it is extremely suggested to obtain the newest patches, Ubuntu stated customers can disable interpreter scanners in needrestart the configuration file as a brief mitigation and make sure that the modifications are reverted after the updates are utilized.
“These vulnerabilities within the needrestart utility permit native customers to escalate their privileges by executing arbitrary code throughout package deal installations or upgrades, the place needrestart is commonly run as the basis consumer,” Saeed Abbasi, product supervisor of TRU at Qualys, stated.
“An attacker exploiting these vulnerabilities may acquire root entry, compromising system integrity and security.”
