Vulnerabilities > CVE-2017-12424 - Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer vulnerability in multiple products

047910
CVSS 9.8 - CRITICAL
Attack vector
NETWORK
Attack complexity
LOW
Privileges required
NONE
Confidentiality impact
HIGH
Integrity impact
HIGH
Availability impact
HIGH
network
low complexity
shadow-project
debian
CWE-119
critical
nessus

Summary

In shadow before 4.5, the newusers tool could be made to manipulate internal data structures in ways unintended by the authors. Malformed input may lead to crashes (with a buffer overflow or other memory corruption) or other unspecified behaviors. This crosses a privilege boundary in, for example, certain web-hosting environments in which a Control Panel allows an unprivileged user account to create subaccounts.

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.
  • Overflow Buffers
    Buffer Overflow attacks target improper or missing bounds checking on buffer operations, typically triggered by input injected by an attacker. As a consequence, an attacker is able to write past the boundaries of allocated buffer regions in memory, causing a program crash or potentially redirection of execution as per the attackers' choice.
  • Client-side Injection-induced Buffer Overflow
    This type of attack exploits a buffer overflow vulnerability in targeted client software through injection of malicious content from a custom-built hostile service.
  • Filter Failure through Buffer Overflow
    In this attack, the idea is to cause an active filter to fail by causing an oversized transaction. An attacker may try to feed overly long input strings to the program in an attempt to overwhelm the filter (by causing a buffer overflow) and hoping that the filter does not fail securely (i.e. the user input is let into the system unfiltered).
  • MIME Conversion
    An attacker exploits a weakness in the MIME conversion routine to cause a buffer overflow and gain control over the mail server machine. The MIME system is designed to allow various different information formats to be interpreted and sent via e-mail. Attack points exist when data are converted to MIME compatible format and back.

Nessus

  • NASL familySuSE Local Security Checks
    NASL idSUSE_SU-2017-2947-1.NASL
    descriptionThis update for shadow fixes several issues. This security issue was fixed : - CVE-2017-12424: The newusers tool could have been forced to manipulate internal data structures in ways unintended by the authors. Malformed input may have lead to crashes (with a buffer overflow or other memory corruption) or other unspecified behaviors (bsc#1052261). The update package also includes non-security fixes. See advisory for details. Note that Tenable Network Security has extracted the preceding description block directly from the SUSE 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 id104472
    published2017-11-09
    reporterThis script is Copyright (C) 2017-2019 and is owned by Tenable, Inc. or an Affiliate thereof.
    sourcehttps://www.tenable.com/plugins/nessus/104472
    titleSUSE SLED12 / SLES12 Security Update : shadow (SUSE-SU-2017:2947-1)
  • NASL familyPhotonOS Local Security Checks
    NASL idPHOTONOS_PHSA-2017-0030_RSYSLOG.NASL
    descriptionAn update of the rsyslog package has been released.
    last seen2020-03-17
    modified2019-02-07
    plugin id121726
    published2019-02-07
    reporterThis script is Copyright (C) 2019-2020 and is owned by Tenable, Inc. or an Affiliate thereof.
    sourcehttps://www.tenable.com/plugins/nessus/121726
    titlePhoton OS 1.0: Rsyslog PHSA-2017-0030
  • NASL familyPhotonOS Local Security Checks
    NASL idPHOTONOS_PHSA-2017-0030_SHADOW.NASL
    descriptionAn update of the shadow package has been released.
    last seen2020-03-17
    modified2019-02-07
    plugin id121727
    published2019-02-07
    reporterThis script is Copyright (C) 2019-2020 and is owned by Tenable, Inc. or an Affiliate thereof.
    sourcehttps://www.tenable.com/plugins/nessus/121727
    titlePhoton OS 1.0: Shadow PHSA-2017-0030
  • NASL familyHuawei Local Security Checks
    NASL idEULEROS_SA-2019-2427.NASL
    descriptionAccording to the versions of the shadow-utils package installed, the EulerOS installation on the remote host is affected by the following vulnerabilities : - In shadow before 4.5, the newusers tool could be made to manipulate internal data structures in ways unintended by the authors. Malformed input may lead to crashes (with a buffer overflow or other memory corruption) or other unspecified behaviors. This crosses a privilege boundary in, for example, certain web-hosting environments in which a Control Panel allows an unprivileged user account to create subaccounts.(CVE-2017-12424) - Integer overflow in shadow 4.2.1 allows local users to gain privileges via crafted input to newuidmap.(CVE-2016-6252) Note that Tenable Network Security has extracted the preceding description block directly from the EulerOS security advisory. Tenable has attempted to automatically clean and format it as much as possible without introducing additional issues.
    last seen2020-05-08
    modified2019-12-04
    plugin id131581
    published2019-12-04
    reporterThis script is Copyright (C) 2019-2020 and is owned by Tenable, Inc. or an Affiliate thereof.
    sourcehttps://www.tenable.com/plugins/nessus/131581
    titleEulerOS 2.0 SP2 : shadow-utils (EulerOS-SA-2019-2427)
  • NASL familyGentoo Local Security Checks
    NASL idGENTOO_GLSA-201710-16.NASL
    descriptionThe remote host is affected by the vulnerability described in GLSA-201710-16 (Shadow: Buffer overflow) Malformed input in the newusers tool may produce crashes and other unspecified behaviors. Impact : A remote attacker could possibly cause a Denial of Service condition or bypass privilege boundaries in some web-hosting environments in which a Control Panel allows an unprivileged user account to create subaccounts. Workaround : There is no known workaround at this time.
    last seen2020-06-01
    modified2020-06-02
    plugin id103851
    published2017-10-16
    reporterThis script is Copyright (C) 2017-2018 Tenable Network Security, Inc.
    sourcehttps://www.tenable.com/plugins/nessus/103851
    titleGLSA-201710-16 : Shadow: Buffer overflow
  • NASL familyPhotonOS Local Security Checks
    NASL idPHOTONOS_PHSA-2017-0030.NASL
    descriptionAn update of [rsyslog,shadow] packages for PhotonOS has been released.
    last seen2019-02-08
    modified2019-02-07
    plugin id111879
    published2018-08-17
    reporterTenable
    sourcehttps://www.tenable.com/plugins/index.php?view=single&id=111879
    titlePhoton OS 1.0: Rsyslog / Shadow PHSA-2017-0030 (deprecated)
  • NASL familyHuawei Local Security Checks
    NASL idEULEROS_SA-2018-1169.NASL
    descriptionAccording to the version of the shadow-utils package installed, the EulerOS installation on the remote host is affected by the following vulnerability : - A buffer overflow flaw leading to heap memory corruption was found in the shadow-utils
    last seen2020-05-06
    modified2018-06-28
    plugin id110745
    published2018-06-28
    reporterThis script is Copyright (C) 2018-2020 and is owned by Tenable, Inc. or an Affiliate thereof.
    sourcehttps://www.tenable.com/plugins/nessus/110745
    titleEulerOS 2.0 SP3 : shadow-utils (EulerOS-SA-2018-1169)
  • NASL familySuSE Local Security Checks
    NASL idOPENSUSE-2017-1265.NASL
    descriptionThis update for shadow fixes several issues. This security issue was fixed : - CVE-2017-12424: The newusers tool could have been forced to manipulate internal data structures in ways unintended by the authors. Malformed input may have lead to crashes (with a buffer overflow or other memory corruption) or other unspecified behaviors (bsc#1052261). These non-security issues were fixed : - bsc#1023895: Fixed man page to not contain invalid options and also prevent warnings when using these options in certain settings - bsc#980486: Reset user in /var/log/tallylog because of the usage of pam_tally2 This update was imported from the SUSE:SLE-12-SP2:Update update project.
    last seen2020-06-05
    modified2017-11-13
    plugin id104523
    published2017-11-13
    reporterThis script is Copyright (C) 2017-2020 Tenable Network Security, Inc.
    sourcehttps://www.tenable.com/plugins/nessus/104523
    titleopenSUSE Security Update : shadow (openSUSE-2017-1265)