Vulnerabilities > CVE-2017-14180 - Resource Exhaustion vulnerability in multiple products
Attack vector
LOCAL Attack complexity
LOW Privileges required
LOW Confidentiality impact
HIGH Integrity impact
HIGH Availability impact
HIGH Summary
Apport 2.13 through 2.20.7 does not properly handle crashes originating from a PID namespace allowing local users to create certain files as root which an attacker could leverage to perform a denial of service via resource exhaustion or possibly gain root privileges, a different vulnerability than CVE-2017-14179.
Vulnerable Configurations
Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE)
Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC)
- XML Ping of the Death An attacker initiates a resource depletion attack where a large number of small XML messages are delivered at a sufficiently rapid rate to cause a denial of service or crash of the target. Transactions such as repetitive SOAP transactions can deplete resources faster than a simple flooding attack because of the additional resources used by the SOAP protocol and the resources necessary to process SOAP messages. The transactions used are immaterial as long as they cause resource utilization on the target. In other words, this is a normal flooding attack augmented by using messages that will require extra processing on the target.
- XML Entity Expansion An attacker submits an XML document to a target application where the XML document uses nested entity expansion to produce an excessively large output XML. XML allows the definition of macro-like structures that can be used to simplify the creation of complex structures. However, this capability can be abused to create excessive demands on a processor's CPU and memory. A small number of nested expansions can result in an exponential growth in demands on memory.
- Inducing Account Lockout An attacker leverages the security functionality of the system aimed at thwarting potential attacks to launch a denial of service attack against a legitimate system user. Many systems, for instance, implement a password throttling mechanism that locks an account after a certain number of incorrect log in attempts. An attacker can leverage this throttling mechanism to lock a legitimate user out of their own account. The weakness that is being leveraged by an attacker is the very security feature that has been put in place to counteract attacks.
- Violating Implicit Assumptions Regarding XML Content (aka XML Denial of Service (XDoS)) XML Denial of Service (XDoS) can be applied to any technology that utilizes XML data. This is, of course, most distributed systems technology including Java, .Net, databases, and so on. XDoS is most closely associated with web services, SOAP, and Rest, because remote service requesters can post malicious XML payloads to the service provider designed to exhaust the service provider's memory, CPU, and/or disk space. The main weakness in XDoS is that the service provider generally must inspect, parse, and validate the XML messages to determine routing, workflow, security considerations, and so on. It is exactly these inspection, parsing, and validation routines that XDoS targets. There are three primary attack vectors that XDoS can navigate Target CPU through recursion: attacker creates a recursive payload and sends to service provider Target memory through jumbo payloads: service provider uses DOM to parse XML. DOM creates in memory representation of XML document, but when document is very large (for example, north of 1 Gb) service provider host may exhaust memory trying to build memory objects. XML Ping of death: attack service provider with numerous small files that clog the system. All of the above attacks exploit the loosely coupled nature of web services, where the service provider has little to no control over the service requester and any messages the service requester sends.
Nessus
NASL family Ubuntu Local Security Checks NASL id UBUNTU_USN-3480-2.NASL description USN-3480-1 fixed vulnerabilities in Apport. The fix for CVE-2017-14177 introduced a regression in the ability to handle crashes for users that configured their systems to use the Upstart init system in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and Ubuntu 17.04. The fix for CVE-2017-14180 temporarily disabled crash forwarding to containers. This update addresses the problems. We apologize for the inconvenience. Sander Bos discovered that Apport incorrectly handled core dumps for setuid binaries. A local attacker could use this issue to perform a denial of service via resource exhaustion or possibly gain root privileges. (CVE-2017-14177) Sander Bos discovered that Apport incorrectly handled core dumps for processes in a different PID namespace. A local attacker could use this issue to perform a denial of service via resource exhaustion or possibly gain root privileges. (CVE-2017-14180). 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 seen 2020-06-01 modified 2020-06-02 plugin id 104712 published 2017-11-21 reporter Ubuntu Security Notice (C) 2017-2019 Canonical, Inc. / NASL script (C) 2017-2019 and is owned by Tenable, Inc. or an Affiliate thereof. source https://www.tenable.com/plugins/nessus/104712 title Ubuntu 16.04 LTS / 17.04 / 17.10 : apport regressions (USN-3480-2) code # # (C) Tenable Network Security, Inc. # # The descriptive text and package checks in this plugin were # extracted from Ubuntu Security Notice USN-3480-2. 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(104712); script_version("3.6"); script_cvs_date("Date: 2019/09/18 12:31:47"); script_cve_id("CVE-2017-14177", "CVE-2017-14180"); script_xref(name:"USN", value:"3480-2"); script_name(english:"Ubuntu 16.04 LTS / 17.04 / 17.10 : apport regressions (USN-3480-2)"); 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: "USN-3480-1 fixed vulnerabilities in Apport. The fix for CVE-2017-14177 introduced a regression in the ability to handle crashes for users that configured their systems to use the Upstart init system in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and Ubuntu 17.04. The fix for CVE-2017-14180 temporarily disabled crash forwarding to containers. This update addresses the problems. We apologize for the inconvenience. Sander Bos discovered that Apport incorrectly handled core dumps for setuid binaries. A local attacker could use this issue to perform a denial of service via resource exhaustion or possibly gain root privileges. (CVE-2017-14177) Sander Bos discovered that Apport incorrectly handled core dumps for processes in a different PID namespace. A local attacker could use this issue to perform a denial of service via resource exhaustion or possibly gain root privileges. (CVE-2017-14180). Note that Tenable Network Security has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Ubuntu security advisory. 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The update introduced a new regression in the container support. This update addresses the problem. We apologize for the inconvenience. Sander Bos discovered that Apport incorrectly handled core dumps for setuid binaries. A local attacker could use this issue to perform a denial of service via resource exhaustion or possibly gain root privileges. (CVE-2017-14177) Sander Bos discovered that Apport incorrectly handled core dumps for processes in a different PID namespace. A local attacker could use this issue to perform a denial of service via resource exhaustion or possibly gain root privileges. (CVE-2017-14180). 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 seen 2020-06-01 modified 2020-06-02 plugin id 105543 published 2018-01-04 reporter Ubuntu Security Notice (C) 2018-2019 Canonical, Inc. / NASL script (C) 2018-2019 and is owned by Tenable, Inc. or an Affiliate thereof. source https://www.tenable.com/plugins/nessus/105543 title Ubuntu 16.04 LTS / 17.04 / 17.10 : apport regression (USN-3480-3) code # # (C) Tenable Network Security, Inc. # # The descriptive text and package checks in this plugin were # extracted from Ubuntu Security Notice USN-3480-3. 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(105543); script_version("3.6"); script_cvs_date("Date: 2019/09/18 12:31:47"); script_cve_id("CVE-2017-14177", "CVE-2017-14180"); script_xref(name:"USN", value:"3480-3"); script_name(english:"Ubuntu 16.04 LTS / 17.04 / 17.10 : apport regression (USN-3480-3)"); 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: "USN-3480-2 fixed regressions in Apport. The update introduced a new regression in the container support. This update addresses the problem. We apologize for the inconvenience. Sander Bos discovered that Apport incorrectly handled core dumps for setuid binaries. A local attacker could use this issue to perform a denial of service via resource exhaustion or possibly gain root privileges. (CVE-2017-14177) Sander Bos discovered that Apport incorrectly handled core dumps for processes in a different PID namespace. A local attacker could use this issue to perform a denial of service via resource exhaustion or possibly gain root privileges. (CVE-2017-14180). 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/3480-3/" ); script_set_attribute( attribute:"solution", value:"Update the affected apport package." ); script_set_cvss_base_vector("CVSS2#AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C"); script_set_cvss_temporal_vector("CVSS2#E:U/RL:OF/RC:C"); script_set_cvss3_base_vector("CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H"); script_set_cvss3_temporal_vector("CVSS:3.0/E:U/RL:O/RC:C"); script_set_attribute(attribute:"exploitability_ease", value:"No known exploits are available"); script_set_attribute(attribute:"exploit_available", value:"false"); script_set_attribute(attribute:"plugin_type", value:"local"); script_set_attribute(attribute:"cpe", value:"p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:apport"); script_set_attribute(attribute:"cpe", value:"cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:16.04"); script_set_attribute(attribute:"cpe", value:"cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:17.04"); script_set_attribute(attribute:"cpe", value:"cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:17.10"); script_set_attribute(attribute:"vuln_publication_date", value:"2018/02/02"); script_set_attribute(attribute:"patch_publication_date", value:"2018/01/03"); script_set_attribute(attribute:"plugin_publication_date", value:"2018/01/04"); script_set_attribute(attribute:"generated_plugin", value:"current"); script_end_attributes(); script_category(ACT_GATHER_INFO); script_copyright(english:"Ubuntu Security Notice (C) 2018-2019 Canonical, Inc. / NASL script (C) 2018-2019 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:"^(16\.04|17\.04|17\.10)$", string:release)) audit(AUDIT_OS_NOT, "Ubuntu 16.04 / 17.04 / 17.10", "Ubuntu " + release); if ( ! get_kb_item("Host/Debian/dpkg-l") ) audit(AUDIT_PACKAGE_LIST_MISSING); cpu = get_kb_item("Host/cpu"); if (isnull(cpu)) audit(AUDIT_UNKNOWN_ARCH); if ("x86_64" >!< cpu && cpu !~ "^i[3-6]86$") audit(AUDIT_LOCAL_CHECKS_NOT_IMPLEMENTED, "Ubuntu", cpu); flag = 0; if (ubuntu_check(osver:"16.04", pkgname:"apport", pkgver:"2.20.1-0ubuntu2.15")) flag++; if (ubuntu_check(osver:"17.04", pkgname:"apport", pkgver:"2.20.4-0ubuntu4.10")) flag++; if (ubuntu_check(osver:"17.10", pkgname:"apport", pkgver:"2.20.7-0ubuntu3.7")) 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, "apport"); }NASL family Ubuntu Local Security Checks NASL id UBUNTU_USN-3480-1.NASL description Sander Bos discovered that Apport incorrectly handled core dumps for setuid binaries. A local attacker could use this issue to perform a denial of service via resource exhaustion or possibly gain root privileges. (CVE-2017-14177) Sander Bos discovered that Apport incorrectly handled core dumps for processes in a different PID namespace. A local attacker could use this issue to perform a denial of service via resource exhaustion or possibly gain root privileges. (CVE-2017-14180). 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 seen 2020-06-01 modified 2020-06-02 plugin id 104625 published 2017-11-16 reporter Ubuntu Security Notice (C) 2017-2019 Canonical, Inc. / NASL script (C) 2017-2019 and is owned by Tenable, Inc. or an Affiliate thereof. source https://www.tenable.com/plugins/nessus/104625 title Ubuntu 14.04 LTS / 16.04 LTS / 17.04 / 17.10 : apport vulnerabilities (USN-3480-1)