Vulnerabilities > CVE-2020-28049 - Race Condition vulnerability in multiple products

047910
CVSS 6.3 - MEDIUM
Attack vector
LOCAL
Attack complexity
HIGH
Privileges required
LOW
Confidentiality impact
HIGH
Integrity impact
HIGH
Availability impact
NONE
local
high complexity
sddm-project
opensuse
debian
fedoraproject
CWE-362
NVD
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2024-11-21

Summary

An issue was discovered in SDDM before 0.19.0. It incorrectly starts the X server in a way that - for a short time period - allows local unprivileged users to create a connection to the X server without providing proper authentication. A local attacker can thus access X server display contents and, for example, intercept keystrokes or access the clipboard. This is caused by a race condition during Xauthority file creation.

Vulnerable Configurations

Part Description Count
Application
Sddm_Project
14
OS
Opensuse
2
OS
Debian
2
OS
Fedoraproject
1

Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE)

Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC)

  • Leveraging Race Conditions
    This attack targets a race condition occurring when multiple processes access and manipulate the same resource concurrently and the outcome of the execution depends on the particular order in which the access takes place. The attacker can leverage a race condition by "running the race", modifying the resource and modifying the normal execution flow. For instance a race condition can occur while accessing a file, the attacker can trick the system by replacing the original file with his version and cause the system to read the malicious file.
  • Leveraging Time-of-Check and Time-of-Use (TOCTOU) Race Conditions
    This attack targets a race condition occurring between the time of check (state) for a resource and the time of use of a resource. The typical example is the file access. The attacker can leverage a file access race condition by "running the race", meaning that he would modify the resource between the first time the target program accesses the file and the time the target program uses the file. During that period of time, the attacker could do something such as replace the file and cause an escalation of privilege.

References