Vulnerabilities > CVE-2009-1296 - Information Exposure vulnerability in Ubuntu 73-Oubuntu and Ubuntu

047910
CVSS 1.9 - LOW
Attack vector
LOCAL
Attack complexity
MEDIUM
Privileges required
NONE
Confidentiality impact
PARTIAL
Integrity impact
NONE
Availability impact
NONE
local
ubuntu
CWE-200
nessus

Summary

The eCryptfs support utilities (ecryptfs-utils) 73-0ubuntu6.1 on Ubuntu 9.04 stores the mount passphrase in installation logs, which might allow local users to obtain access to the filesystem by reading the log files from disk. NOTE: the log files are only readable by root.

Vulnerable Configurations

Part Description Count
Application
Ubuntu
1
OS
Ubuntu
1

Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE)

Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC)

  • Subverting Environment Variable Values
    The attacker directly or indirectly modifies environment variables used by or controlling the target software. The attacker's goal is to cause the target software to deviate from its expected operation in a manner that benefits the attacker.
  • Footprinting
    An attacker engages in probing and exploration activity to identify constituents and properties of the target. Footprinting is a general term to describe a variety of information gathering techniques, often used by attackers in preparation for some attack. It consists of using tools to learn as much as possible about the composition, configuration, and security mechanisms of the targeted application, system or network. Information that might be collected during a footprinting effort could include open ports, applications and their versions, network topology, and similar information. While footprinting is not intended to be damaging (although certain activities, such as network scans, can sometimes cause disruptions to vulnerable applications inadvertently) it may often pave the way for more damaging attacks.
  • Exploiting Trust in Client (aka Make the Client Invisible)
    An attack of this type exploits a programs' vulnerabilities in client/server communication channel authentication and data integrity. It leverages the implicit trust a server places in the client, or more importantly, that which the server believes is the client. An attacker executes this type of attack by placing themselves in the communication channel between client and server such that communication directly to the server is possible where the server believes it is communicating only with a valid client. There are numerous variations of this type of attack.
  • Browser Fingerprinting
    An attacker carefully crafts small snippets of Java Script to efficiently detect the type of browser the potential victim is using. Many web-based attacks need prior knowledge of the web browser including the version of browser to ensure successful exploitation of a vulnerability. Having this knowledge allows an attacker to target the victim with attacks that specifically exploit known or zero day weaknesses in the type and version of the browser used by the victim. Automating this process via Java Script as a part of the same delivery system used to exploit the browser is considered more efficient as the attacker can supply a browser fingerprinting method and integrate it with exploit code, all contained in Java Script and in response to the same web page request by the browser.
  • Session Credential Falsification through Prediction
    This attack targets predictable session ID in order to gain privileges. The attacker can predict the session ID used during a transaction to perform spoofing and session hijacking.

Nessus

NASL familyUbuntu Local Security Checks
NASL idUBUNTU_USN-783-1.NASL
descriptionChris Jones discovered that the eCryptfs support utilities would report the mount passphrase into installation logs when an eCryptfs home directory was selected during Ubuntu installation. The logs are only readable by the root user, but this still left the mount passphrase unencrypted on disk, potentially leading to a loss of privacy. 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 id39336
published2009-06-09
reporterUbuntu Security Notice (C) 2009-2019 Canonical, Inc. / NASL script (C) 2018 and is owned by Tenable, Inc. or an Affiliate thereof.
sourcehttps://www.tenable.com/plugins/nessus/39336
titleUbuntu 9.04 : ecryptfs-utils vulnerability (USN-783-1)
code
#%NASL_MIN_LEVEL 80502
#
# (C) Tenable Network Security, Inc.
#
# The descriptive text and package checks in this plugin were
# extracted from Ubuntu Security Notice USN-783-1. The text 
# itself is copyright (C) Canonical, Inc. See 
# <http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/>. Ubuntu(R) is a registered 
# trademark of Canonical, Inc.
#

include("compat.inc");

if (description)
{
  script_id(39336);
  script_version("1.13");
  script_cvs_date("Date: 2019/08/02 13:33:02");

  script_cve_id("CVE-2009-1296");
  script_xref(name:"USN", value:"783-1");

  script_name(english:"Ubuntu 9.04 : ecryptfs-utils vulnerability (USN-783-1)");
  script_summary(english:"Checks dpkg output for updated packages.");

  script_set_attribute(
    attribute:"synopsis", 
    value:
"The remote Ubuntu host is missing one or more security-related
patches."
  );
  script_set_attribute(
    attribute:"description", 
    value:
"Chris Jones discovered that the eCryptfs support utilities would
report the mount passphrase into installation logs when an eCryptfs
home directory was selected during Ubuntu installation. The logs are
only readable by the root user, but this still left the mount
passphrase unencrypted on disk, potentially leading to a loss of
privacy.

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."
  );
  script_set_attribute(
    attribute:"see_also",
    value:"https://usn.ubuntu.com/783-1/"
  );
  script_set_attribute(
    attribute:"solution", 
    value:
"Update the affected ecryptfs-utils, libecryptfs-dev and / or
libecryptfs0 packages."
  );
  script_set_cvss_base_vector("CVSS2#AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N");
  script_cwe_id(200);

  script_set_attribute(attribute:"plugin_type", value:"local");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"cpe", value:"p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:ecryptfs-utils");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"cpe", value:"p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:libecryptfs-dev");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"cpe", value:"p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:libecryptfs0");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"cpe", value:"cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:9.04");

  script_set_attribute(attribute:"patch_publication_date", value:"2009/06/08");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"plugin_publication_date", value:"2009/06/09");
  script_end_attributes();

  script_category(ACT_GATHER_INFO);
  script_copyright(english:"Ubuntu Security Notice (C) 2009-2019 Canonical, Inc. / NASL script (C) 2018 and is owned by Tenable, Inc. or an Affiliate thereof.");
  script_family(english:"Ubuntu Local Security Checks");

  script_dependencies("ssh_get_info.nasl");
  script_require_keys("Host/cpu", "Host/Ubuntu", "Host/Ubuntu/release", "Host/Debian/dpkg-l");

  exit(0);
}


include("audit.inc");
include("ubuntu.inc");
include("misc_func.inc");

if ( ! get_kb_item("Host/local_checks_enabled") ) audit(AUDIT_LOCAL_CHECKS_NOT_ENABLED);
release = get_kb_item("Host/Ubuntu/release");
if ( isnull(release) ) audit(AUDIT_OS_NOT, "Ubuntu");
release = chomp(release);
if (! ereg(pattern:"^(9\.04)$", string:release)) audit(AUDIT_OS_NOT, "Ubuntu 9.04", "Ubuntu " + release);
if ( ! get_kb_item("Host/Debian/dpkg-l") ) audit(AUDIT_PACKAGE_LIST_MISSING);

cpu = get_kb_item("Host/cpu");
if (isnull(cpu)) audit(AUDIT_UNKNOWN_ARCH);
if ("x86_64" >!< cpu && cpu !~ "^i[3-6]86$") audit(AUDIT_LOCAL_CHECKS_NOT_IMPLEMENTED, "Ubuntu", cpu);

flag = 0;

if (ubuntu_check(osver:"9.04", pkgname:"ecryptfs-utils", pkgver:"73-0ubuntu6.1")) flag++;
if (ubuntu_check(osver:"9.04", pkgname:"libecryptfs-dev", pkgver:"73-0ubuntu6.1")) flag++;
if (ubuntu_check(osver:"9.04", pkgname:"libecryptfs0", pkgver:"73-0ubuntu6.1")) flag++;

if (flag)
{
  security_report_v4(
    port       : 0,
    severity   : SECURITY_NOTE,
    extra      : ubuntu_report_get()
  );
  exit(0);
}
else
{
  tested = ubuntu_pkg_tests_get();
  if (tested) audit(AUDIT_PACKAGE_NOT_AFFECTED, tested);
  else audit(AUDIT_PACKAGE_NOT_INSTALLED, "ecryptfs-utils / libecryptfs-dev / libecryptfs0");
}

Statements

contributorTomas Hoger
lastmodified2009-06-10
organizationRed Hat
statementNot vulnerable. This issue did not affect the versions of ecryptfs-utils as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. eCryptfs encrypted home directories are not set up during the system installation, so theres no possibility for leaking encryption passwords to the installation log file.