Security Bulletin: Vulnerabilities in Bash affect certain Intel Xeon Phi PCIe cards supported in IBM System x servers (CVE-2014-6271, CVE-2014-7169, CVE-2014-7186, CVE-2014-7187, CVE-2014-6277, CVE-2014-6278)

Summary

Six Bash vulnerabilities were disclosed in September 2014. This bulletin addresses the vulnerabilities that have been referred to as “Bash Bug” or “Shellshock” and two memory corruption vulnerabilities. Bash is used by Intel MPSS (Manycore Platform Software Stack) used with the Intel Xeon Phi PCIe cards resold by IBM that are supported in IBM System x servers.

Vulnerability Details

Abstract

Six Bash vulnerabilities were disclosed in September 2014. This bulletin addresses the vulnerabilities that have been referred to as “Bash Bug” or “Shellshock” and two memory corruption vulnerabilities. Bash is used by Intel MPSS (Manycore Platform Software Stack) used with the Intel Xeon Phi PCIe cards resold by IBM that are supported in IBM System x servers.

Content

Vulnerability Details

CVE-ID: CVE-2014-6271

Description: GNU Bash could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary commands on the system, caused by an error when evaluating specially-crafted environment variables passed to it by the bash functionality. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to write to files and execute arbitrary commands on the system.
CVSS Base Score: 10.0
CVSS Temporal Score: See <http://xforce.iss.net/xforce/xfdb/96153&gt; for the current score
CVSS Environmental Score*: Undefined
CVSS Vector: (AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C)

CVE-ID: CVE-2014-7169

Description: GNU Bash could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary commands on the system, caused by an incomplete fix related to malformed function definitions in the values of environment variables. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability using attack vectors involving the ForceCommand feature in OpenSSH sshd, the mod_cgi and mod_cgid modules in the Apache HTTP Server to write to files and execute arbitrary commands on the system.
CVSS Base Score: 10.0
CVSS Temporal Score: See <http://xforce.iss.net/xforce/xfdb/96209&gt; for the current score
CVSS Environmental Score*: Undefined
CVSS Vector: (AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C)

CVE-ID: CVE-2014-7186

Description: GNU Bash could allow a local attacker to execute arbitrary code on the system, caused by an out-of-bounds memory access while handling redir_stack. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to execute arbitrary code on the system or cause a denial of service.
CVSS Base Score: 4.6
CVSS Temporal Score: See <http://xforce.iss.net/xforce/xfdb/96237&gt; for the current score
CVSS Environmental Score*: Undefined
CVSS Vector: (AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P)

CVE-ID: CVE-2014-7187

Description: GNU Bash could allow a local attacker to execute arbitrary code on the system, caused by an off-by-one-error when handling deeply nested flow control constructs. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to execute arbitrary code on the system or cause a denial of service.
CVSS Base Score: 4.6
CVSS Temporal Score: See <http://xforce.iss.net/xforce/xfdb/96238&gt; for the current score
CVSS Environmental Score*: Undefined
CVSS Vector: (AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P)

CVE-ID: CVE-2014-6277

Description: GNU Bash could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on the system, caused by an incomplete fix related to the failure to properly parse function definitions in the values of environment variables. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability using attack vectors involving the ForceCommand feature in OpenSSH sshd, the mod_cgi and mod_cgid modules in the Apache HTTP Server to execute arbitrary code on the system or cause a denial of service.
CVSS Base Score: 10.0
CVSS Temporal Score: See <http://xforce.iss.net/xforce/xfdb/96686&gt; for the current score
CVSS Environmental Score*: Undefined
CVSS Vector: (AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C)

CVE-ID: CVE-2014-6278

Description: GNU Bash could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on the system, caused by an incomplete fix related to the parsing of user scripts. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to execute arbitrary code on the system or cause a denial of service.
CVSS Base Score: 10.0
CVSS Temporal Score: See <http://xforce.iss.net/xforce/xfdb/96687&gt; for the current score
CVSS Environmental Score*: Undefined
CVSS Vector: (AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C)

Affected products and versions

Intel MPSS that is used with the Intel Xeon Phi PCIe cards resold by IBM that are supported in IBM System x servers running versions 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3 that are supported with the Intel Xeon Phi 5110P, Intel Xeon Phi 3120A and Intel Xeon Phi 7120P cards on the iDataPlex dx360m4, NeXtScale nx360m4, PureFlex x220/x240+PEN and x3850/x3950 X6 platforms.

Remediation:

IBM recommends that you fix this vulnerability by upgrading affected versions of Intel MPSS that are used with the Intel Xeon Phi PCIe cards that are supported in IBM System x servers to MPSS version 3.3.2. Instructions on how to get and apply the update are available at https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-manycore-platform-software-stack-mpss.

You should not download MPSS version 3.4 or 3.4.1 for use with the Intel Xeon Phi PCIe cards resold by IBM supported in IBM System x servers because version 3.4 nor 3.4.1 has not been qualified for use with these servers.

IBM recommends that you review your entire environment to identify vulnerable releases of Bash including your Operating Systems and take appropriate mitigation and remediation actions. Please contact your Operating System provider for more information.

Workaround(s) & Mitigation(s):

None known

References:

• Complete CVSS Guide
• On-line Calculator V2

Related Information

IBM Secure Engineering Web Portal
IBM Product Security Incident Response Blog

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Acknowledgement
None

Change History
22 October 2014: Original Version Published

• The CVSS Environment Score is customer environment specific and will ultimately impact the Overall CVSS Score. Customers can evaluate the impact of this vulnerability in their environments by accessing the links in the Reference section of this Flash.

Note: According to the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST), the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) is an “industry open standard designed to convey vulnerability severity and help to determine urgency and priority of response.” IBM PROVIDES THE CVSS SCORES “AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, INCLUDING THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. CUSTOMERS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF ANY ACTUAL OR POTENTIAL SECURITY VULNERABILITY.