[ GLSA 200909-01 ] Linux-PAM: Privilege escalation

[GLSA]

Gentoo Linux Security Advisory

Title: Linux-PAM: Privilege escalation (GLSA 200909-01)
Severity: normal
Exploitable: remote
Date: September 07, 2009
Bug(s): #261512
ID: 200909-01

Synopsis


An error in the handling of user names of Linux-PAM might allow remote
attackers to cause a Denial of Service or escalate privileges.


Background


Linux-PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules) is an architecture
allowing the separation of the development of privilege granting
software from the development of secure and appropriate authentication
schemes.


Affected Packages

Package: sys-libs/pam
Vulnerable: < 1.0.4
Unaffected: >= 1.0.4
Architectures: All supported architectures


Description


Marcus Granado repoted that Linux-PAM does not properly handle user
names that contain Unicode characters. This is related to integer
signedness errors in the pam_StrTok() function in libpam/pam_misc.c.


Impact


A remote attacker could exploit this vulnerability to cause a Denial of
Service. A remote authenticated attacker could exploit this
vulnerability to log in to a system with the account of a user that has
a similar user name, but with non-ASCII characters.


Workaround


There is no known workaround at this time.


Resolution


All Linux-PAM users should upgrade to the latest version: