Security Bulletin: Vulnerabilities in libuser affect PowerKVM (CVE-2015-3245 and CVE-2015-3246)

Summary

PowerKVM is affected by two vulnerabilities (CVE-2015-3245 and CVE-2015-3246) in libuser. These vulnerabilities are now fixed.

Vulnerability Details

CVEID: CVE-2015-3245**
DESCRIPTION:** libuser is vulnerable to a denial of service, caused by the failure to properly filter out newline characters by the chfn() function within the userhelper utility. A local authenticated attacker could exploit this vulnerability to inject newline characters into the /etc/passwd file and cause a denial of service.
CVSS Base Score: 4.7
CVSS Temporal Score: See https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/105022 for the current score
CVSS Environmental Score*: Undefined
CVSS Vector: (AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H)

CVEID: CVE-2015-3246**
DESCRIPTION:** libuser could allow a local authenticated attacker to gain elevated privileges on the system, caused by the improper handling of the /etc/passwd file. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to gain root privileges on the system.
CVSS Base Score: 7.8
CVSS Temporal Score: See https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/105023 for the current score
CVSS Environmental Score*: Undefined
CVSS Vector: (AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H)

Affected Products and Versions

PowerKVM 2.1

Remediation/Fixes

Fix is made available via Fix Central (https://ibm.biz/BdEnT8) in 2.1.1 Service Pack 3 and all later builds and fix packs. For systems currently running fix levels of PowerKVM prior to 2.1.1, please see <http://download4.boulder.ibm.com/sar/CMA/OSA/05e4c/0/README&gt; for prerequisite fixes and instructions. Customers can also update from 2.1.1 (GA and later levels) by using “yum update”.

Workarounds and Mitigations

None