Vulnerabilities > CVE-2008-0008 - Improper Input Validation vulnerability in Pulseaudio 0.9.6/0.9.8

047910
CVSS 0.0 - NONE
Attack vector
UNKNOWN
Attack complexity
UNKNOWN
Privileges required
UNKNOWN
Confidentiality impact
UNKNOWN
Integrity impact
UNKNOWN
Availability impact
UNKNOWN
pulseaudio
CWE-20
nessus
NVD
Published: 2008-01-29
Updated: 2024-01-09

Summary

The pa_drop_root function in PulseAudio 0.9.8, and a certain 0.9.9 build, does not check return values from (1) setresuid, (2) setreuid, (3) setuid, and (4) seteuid calls when attempting to drop privileges, which might allow local users to gain privileges by causing those calls to fail via attacks such as resource exhaustion.

Vulnerable Configurations

Part Description Count
OS
Mandrakesoft
4
OS
Redhat
2
Application
Pulseaudio
2

Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE)

Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC)

  • Buffer Overflow via Environment Variables
    This attack pattern involves causing a buffer overflow through manipulation of environment variables. Once the attacker finds that they can modify an environment variable, they may try to overflow associated buffers. This attack leverages implicit trust often placed in environment variables.
  • Server Side Include (SSI) Injection
    An attacker can use Server Side Include (SSI) Injection to send code to a web application that then gets executed by the web server. Doing so enables the attacker to achieve similar results to Cross Site Scripting, viz., arbitrary code execution and information disclosure, albeit on a more limited scale, since the SSI directives are nowhere near as powerful as a full-fledged scripting language. Nonetheless, the attacker can conveniently gain access to sensitive files, such as password files, and execute shell commands.
  • Cross Zone Scripting
    An attacker is able to cause a victim to load content into their web-browser that bypasses security zone controls and gain access to increased privileges to execute scripting code or other web objects such as unsigned ActiveX controls or applets. This is a privilege elevation attack targeted at zone-based web-browser security. In a zone-based model, pages belong to one of a set of zones corresponding to the level of privilege assigned to that page. Pages in an untrusted zone would have a lesser level of access to the system and/or be restricted in the types of executable content it was allowed to invoke. In a cross-zone scripting attack, a page that should be assigned to a less privileged zone is granted the privileges of a more trusted zone. This can be accomplished by exploiting bugs in the browser, exploiting incorrect configuration in the zone controls, through a cross-site scripting attack that causes the attackers' content to be treated as coming from a more trusted page, or by leveraging some piece of system functionality that is accessible from both the trusted and less trusted zone. This attack differs from "Restful Privilege Escalation" in that the latter correlates to the inadequate securing of RESTful access methods (such as HTTP DELETE) on the server, while cross-zone scripting attacks the concept of security zones as implemented by a browser.
  • Cross Site Scripting through Log Files
    An attacker may leverage a system weakness where logs are susceptible to log injection to insert scripts into the system's logs. If these logs are later viewed by an administrator through a thin administrative interface and the log data is not properly HTML encoded before being written to the page, the attackers' scripts stored in the log will be executed in the administrative interface with potentially serious consequences. This attack pattern is really a combination of two other attack patterns: log injection and stored cross site scripting.
  • Command Line Execution through SQL Injection
    An attacker uses standard SQL injection methods to inject data into the command line for execution. This could be done directly through misuse of directives such as MSSQL_xp_cmdshell or indirectly through injection of data into the database that would be interpreted as shell commands. Sometime later, an unscrupulous backend application (or could be part of the functionality of the same application) fetches the injected data stored in the database and uses this data as command line arguments without performing proper validation. The malicious data escapes that data plane by spawning new commands to be executed on the host.

Nessus

  • NASL familyMandriva Local Security Checks
    NASL idMANDRIVA_MDVSA-2008-027.NASL
    descriptionA programming flaw was found in Pulseaudio versions older than 0.9.9, by which a local user can gain root access, if pulseaudio is installed as a setuid to root binary, which is the recommended configuration. The updated packages fix this issue.
    last seen2020-06-01
    modified2020-06-02
    plugin id37092
    published2009-04-23
    reporterThis script is Copyright (C) 2009-2019 Tenable Network Security, Inc.
    sourcehttps://www.tenable.com/plugins/nessus/37092
    titleMandriva Linux Security Advisory : pulseaudio (MDVSA-2008:027)
    code
    #%NASL_MIN_LEVEL 80502

#
# (C) Tenable Network Security, Inc.
#
# The descriptive text and package checks in this plugin were  
# extracted from Mandriva Linux Security Advisory MDVSA-2008:027. 
# The text itself is copyright (C) Mandriva S.A.
#

include("compat.inc");

if (description)
{
  script_id(37092);
  script_version ("1.13");
  script_cvs_date("Date: 2019/08/02 13:32:50");

  script_cve_id("CVE-2008-0008");
  script_xref(name:"MDVSA", value:"2008:027");

  script_name(english:"Mandriva Linux Security Advisory : pulseaudio (MDVSA-2008:027)");
  script_summary(english:"Checks rpm output for the updated packages");

  script_set_attribute(
    attribute:"synopsis", 
    value:
"The remote Mandriva Linux host is missing one or more security
updates."
  );
  script_set_attribute(
    attribute:"description", 
    value:
"A programming flaw was found in Pulseaudio versions older than 0.9.9,
by which a local user can gain root access, if pulseaudio is installed
as a setuid to root binary, which is the recommended configuration.

The updated packages fix this issue."
  );
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"solution", value:"Update the affected packages.");
  script_set_cvss_base_vector("CVSS2#AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C");
  script_cwe_id(20);

  script_set_attribute(attribute:"plugin_type", value:"local");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"cpe", value:"p-cpe:/a:mandriva:linux:lib64pulseaudio0");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"cpe", value:"p-cpe:/a:mandriva:linux:lib64pulseaudio0-devel");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"cpe", value:"p-cpe:/a:mandriva:linux:lib64pulsecore2");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"cpe", value:"p-cpe:/a:mandriva:linux:lib64pulsecore3");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"cpe", value:"p-cpe:/a:mandriva:linux:libpulseaudio0");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"cpe", value:"p-cpe:/a:mandriva:linux:libpulseaudio0-devel");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"cpe", value:"p-cpe:/a:mandriva:linux:libpulsecore2");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"cpe", value:"p-cpe:/a:mandriva:linux:libpulsecore3");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"cpe", value:"p-cpe:/a:mandriva:linux:pulseaudio");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"cpe", value:"cpe:/o:mandriva:linux:2007.1");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"cpe", value:"cpe:/o:mandriva:linux:2008.0");

  script_set_attribute(attribute:"patch_publication_date", value:"2008/01/25");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"plugin_publication_date", value:"2009/04/23");
  script_end_attributes();

  script_category(ACT_GATHER_INFO);
  script_copyright(english:"This script is Copyright (C) 2009-2019 Tenable Network Security, Inc.");
  script_family(english:"Mandriva Local Security Checks");

  script_dependencies("ssh_get_info.nasl");
  script_require_keys("Host/local_checks_enabled", "Host/cpu", "Host/Mandrake/release", "Host/Mandrake/rpm-list");

  exit(0);
}


include("audit.inc");
include("global_settings.inc");
include("rpm.inc");


if (!get_kb_item("Host/local_checks_enabled")) audit(AUDIT_LOCAL_CHECKS_NOT_ENABLED);
if (!get_kb_item("Host/Mandrake/release")) audit(AUDIT_OS_NOT, "Mandriva / Mandake Linux");
if (!get_kb_item("Host/Mandrake/rpm-list")) audit(AUDIT_PACKAGE_LIST_MISSING);

cpu = get_kb_item("Host/cpu");
if (isnull(cpu)) audit(AUDIT_UNKNOWN_ARCH);
if (cpu !~ "^(amd64|i[3-6]86|x86_64)$") audit(AUDIT_LOCAL_CHECKS_NOT_IMPLEMENTED, "Mandriva / Mandrake Linux", cpu);


flag = 0;
if (rpm_check(release:"MDK2007.1", cpu:"x86_64", reference:"lib64pulseaudio0-0.9.5-1.2mdv2007.1", yank:"mdv")) flag++;
if (rpm_check(release:"MDK2007.1", cpu:"x86_64", reference:"lib64pulseaudio0-devel-0.9.5-1.2mdv2007.1", yank:"mdv")) flag++;
if (rpm_check(release:"MDK2007.1", cpu:"x86_64", reference:"lib64pulsecore2-0.9.5-1.2mdv2007.1", yank:"mdv")) flag++;
if (rpm_check(release:"MDK2007.1", cpu:"i386", reference:"libpulseaudio0-0.9.5-1.2mdv2007.1", yank:"mdv")) flag++;
if (rpm_check(release:"MDK2007.1", cpu:"i386", reference:"libpulseaudio0-devel-0.9.5-1.2mdv2007.1", yank:"mdv")) flag++;
if (rpm_check(release:"MDK2007.1", cpu:"i386", reference:"libpulsecore2-0.9.5-1.2mdv2007.1", yank:"mdv")) flag++;
if (rpm_check(release:"MDK2007.1", reference:"pulseaudio-0.9.5-1.2mdv2007.1", yank:"mdv")) flag++;

if (rpm_check(release:"MDK2008.0", cpu:"x86_64", reference:"lib64pulseaudio0-0.9.6-3.2mdv2008.0", yank:"mdv")) flag++;
if (rpm_check(release:"MDK2008.0", cpu:"x86_64", reference:"lib64pulseaudio0-devel-0.9.6-3.2mdv2008.0", yank:"mdv")) flag++;
if (rpm_check(release:"MDK2008.0", cpu:"x86_64", reference:"lib64pulsecore3-0.9.6-3.2mdv2008.0", yank:"mdv")) flag++;
if (rpm_check(release:"MDK2008.0", cpu:"i386", reference:"libpulseaudio0-0.9.6-3.2mdv2008.0", yank:"mdv")) flag++;
if (rpm_check(release:"MDK2008.0", cpu:"i386", reference:"libpulseaudio0-devel-0.9.6-3.2mdv2008.0", yank:"mdv")) flag++;
if (rpm_check(release:"MDK2008.0", cpu:"i386", reference:"libpulsecore3-0.9.6-3.2mdv2008.0", yank:"mdv")) flag++;
if (rpm_check(release:"MDK2008.0", reference:"pulseaudio-0.9.6-3.2mdv2008.0", yank:"mdv")) flag++;


if (flag)
{
  if (report_verbosity > 0) security_hole(port:0, extra:rpm_report_get());
  else security_hole(0);
  exit(0);
}
else audit(AUDIT_HOST_NOT, "affected");
  • NASL familyUbuntu Local Security Checks
    NASL idUBUNTU_USN-573-1.NASL
    descriptionIt was discovered that PulseAudio did not properly drop privileges when running as a daemon. Local users may be able to exploit this and gain privileges. The default Ubuntu configuration is not affected. Note that Tenable Network Security has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Ubuntu security advisory. Tenable has attempted to automatically clean and format it as much as possible without introducing additional issues.
    last seen2020-06-01
    modified2020-06-02
    plugin id30147
    published2008-02-01
    reporterUbuntu Security Notice (C) 2008-2019 Canonical, Inc. / NASL script (C) 2018 and is owned by Tenable, Inc. or an Affiliate thereof.
    sourcehttps://www.tenable.com/plugins/nessus/30147
    titleUbuntu 7.04 / 7.10 : pulseaudio vulnerability (USN-573-1)
  • NASL familyDebian Local Security Checks
    NASL idDEBIAN_DSA-1476.NASL
    descriptionMarcus Meissner discovered that the PulseAudio sound server performed insufficient checks when dropping privileges, which could lead to local privilege escalation.
    last seen2020-06-01
    modified2020-06-02
    plugin id30111
    published2008-01-29
    reporterThis script is Copyright (C) 2008-2019 and is owned by Tenable, Inc. or an Affiliate thereof.
    sourcehttps://www.tenable.com/plugins/nessus/30111
    titleDebian DSA-1476-1 : pulseaudio - programming error
  • NASL familyFedora Local Security Checks
    NASL idFEDORA_2008-0994.NASL
    description - Wed Jan 23 2008 Lubomir Kundrak <lkundrak at redhat.com> 0.9.6-2.1 - Fix CVE-2008-0008 security issue (#425481) - Tue May 29 2007 Pierre Ossman <drzeus at drzeus.cx> 0.9.6-2 - Add libatomic_ops-devel as a build requirement. - Tue May 29 2007 Pierre Ossman <drzeus at drzeus.cx> 0.9.6-1 - Upgrade to 0.9.6. Note that Tenable Network Security has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Fedora security advisory. Tenable has attempted to automatically clean and format it as much as possible without introducing additional issues.
    last seen2020-06-01
    modified2020-06-02
    plugin id30085
    published2008-01-27
    reporterThis script is Copyright (C) 2008-2019 Tenable Network Security, Inc.
    sourcehttps://www.tenable.com/plugins/nessus/30085
    titleFedora 7 : pulseaudio-0.9.6-2.fc7.1 (2008-0994)
  • NASL familyGentoo Local Security Checks
    NASL idGENTOO_GLSA-200802-07.NASL
    descriptionThe remote host is affected by the vulnerability described in GLSA-200802-07 (Pulseaudio: Privilege escalation) Marcus Meissner from SUSE reported that the pa_drop_root() function does not properly check the return value of the system calls setuid(), seteuid(), setresuid() and setreuid() when dropping its privileges. Impact : A local attacker could cause a resource exhaustion to make the system calls fail, which would cause Pulseaudio to run as root. The attacker could then perform actions with root privileges. Workaround : There is no known workaround at this time.
    last seen2020-06-01
    modified2020-06-02
    plugin id31085
    published2008-02-14
    reporterThis script is Copyright (C) 2008-2019 Tenable Network Security, Inc.
    sourcehttps://www.tenable.com/plugins/nessus/31085
    titleGLSA-200802-07 : Pulseaudio: Privilege escalation
  • NASL familyFedora Local Security Checks
    NASL idFEDORA_2008-0963.NASL
    description - Wed Jan 23 2008 Lubomir Kundrak <lkundrak at redhat.com> 0.9.8-5 - Fix CVE-2008-0008 security issue (#425481) - Sun Jan 13 2008 Lubomir Kundrak <lkundrak at redhat.com> 0.9.8-4.1 - Actually add content to pulseaudio-0.9.8-create-dot-pulse.patch - Make the Source0 tag point to URL instead of a local file - Drop the nochown patch; it
    last seen2020-06-01
    modified2020-06-02
    plugin id30084
    published2008-01-27
    reporterThis script is Copyright (C) 2008-2019 Tenable Network Security, Inc.
    sourcehttps://www.tenable.com/plugins/nessus/30084
    titleFedora 8 : pulseaudio-0.9.8-5.fc8 (2008-0963)

References