Vulnerabilities > CVE-2012-1166 - OS Command Injection vulnerability in Canonical Ltsp Display Manager and Ubuntu Linux

047910
CVSS 10.0 - CRITICAL
Attack vector
NETWORK
Attack complexity
LOW
Privileges required
NONE
Confidentiality impact
COMPLETE
Integrity impact
COMPLETE
Availability impact
COMPLETE
network
low complexity
canonical
CWE-78
critical
nessus

Summary

The default keybindings for wwm in LTSP Display Manager (ldm) 2.2.x before 2.2.7 allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary commands via the KP_RETURN keybinding, which launches a terminal window.

Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC)

  • 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.
  • Command Delimiters
    An attack of this type exploits a programs' vulnerabilities that allows an attacker's commands to be concatenated onto a legitimate command with the intent of targeting other resources such as the file system or database. The system that uses a filter or a blacklist input validation, as opposed to whitelist validation is vulnerable to an attacker who predicts delimiters (or combinations of delimiters) not present in the filter or blacklist. As with other injection attacks, the attacker uses the command delimiter payload as an entry point to tunnel through the application and activate additional attacks through SQL queries, shell commands, network scanning, and so on.
  • Exploiting Multiple Input Interpretation Layers
    An attacker supplies the target software with input data that contains sequences of special characters designed to bypass input validation logic. This exploit relies on the target making multiples passes over the input data and processing a "layer" of special characters with each pass. In this manner, the attacker can disguise input that would otherwise be rejected as invalid by concealing it with layers of special/escape characters that are stripped off by subsequent processing steps. The goal is to first discover cases where the input validation layer executes before one or more parsing layers. That is, user input may go through the following logic in an application: In such cases, the attacker will need to provide input that will pass through the input validator, but after passing through parser2, will be converted into something that the input validator was supposed to stop.
  • Argument Injection
    An attacker changes the behavior or state of a targeted application through injecting data or command syntax through the targets use of non-validated and non-filtered arguments of exposed services or methods.
  • OS Command Injection
    In this type of an attack, an adversary injects operating system commands into existing application functions. An application that uses untrusted input to build command strings is vulnerable. An adversary can leverage OS command injection in an application to elevate privileges, execute arbitrary commands and compromise the underlying operating system.

Nessus

NASL familyUbuntu Local Security Checks
NASL idUBUNTU_USN-1398-1.NASL
descriptionTenho Tuhkala discovered that the LTSP Display Manager (ldm) incorrectly filtered keybindings. An attacker could use the default keybindings to execute arbitrary commands as root at the login screen. 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 id58326
published2012-03-13
reporterUbuntu Security Notice (C) 2012-2019 Canonical, Inc. / NASL script (C) 2012-2019 and is owned by Tenable, Inc. or an Affiliate thereof.
sourcehttps://www.tenable.com/plugins/nessus/58326
titleUbuntu 11.04 / 11.10 : ldm vulnerability (USN-1398-1)
code
#
# (C) Tenable Network Security, Inc.
#
# The descriptive text and package checks in this plugin were
# extracted from Ubuntu Security Notice USN-1398-1. 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(58326);
  script_version("1.9");
  script_cvs_date("Date: 2019/09/19 12:54:27");

  script_cve_id("CVE-2012-1166");
  script_xref(name:"USN", value:"1398-1");

  script_name(english:"Ubuntu 11.04 / 11.10 : ldm vulnerability (USN-1398-1)");
  script_summary(english:"Checks dpkg output for updated package.");

  script_set_attribute(
    attribute:"synopsis", 
    value:"The remote Ubuntu host is missing a security-related patch."
  );
  script_set_attribute(
    attribute:"description", 
    value:
"Tenho Tuhkala discovered that the LTSP Display Manager (ldm)
incorrectly filtered keybindings. An attacker could use the default
keybindings to execute arbitrary commands as root at the login screen.

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/1398-1/"
  );
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"solution", value:"Update the affected ldm package.");
  script_set_cvss_base_vector("CVSS2#AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C");

  script_set_attribute(attribute:"plugin_type", value:"local");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"cpe", value:"p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:ldm");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"cpe", value:"cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:11.04");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"cpe", value:"cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:11.10");

  script_set_attribute(attribute:"vuln_publication_date", value:"2014/05/21");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"patch_publication_date", value:"2012/03/12");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"plugin_publication_date", value:"2012/03/13");
  script_set_attribute(attribute:"generated_plugin", value:"current");
  script_end_attributes();

  script_category(ACT_GATHER_INFO);
  script_copyright(english:"Ubuntu Security Notice (C) 2012-2019 Canonical, Inc. / NASL script (C) 2012-2019 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 (! preg(pattern:"^(11\.04|11\.10)$", string:release)) audit(AUDIT_OS_NOT, "Ubuntu 11.04 / 11.10", "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:"11.04", pkgname:"ldm", pkgver:"2:2.2.1-0ubuntu1.1")) flag++;
if (ubuntu_check(osver:"11.10", pkgname:"ldm", pkgver:"2:2.2.4-0ubuntu1.1")) flag++;

if (flag)
{
  security_report_v4(
    port       : 0,
    severity   : SECURITY_HOLE,
    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, "ldm");
}