Security Bulletin: IBM SONAS Administrator password can be read by the root user from the shell command history (CVE-2014-3045)

Summary

A fix is available for IBM SONAS, for the security issue that after changing password of administrative user, the password can be read by the root user from the shell command history.

Vulnerability Details

CVEID:
CVE-2014-3045

DESCRIPTION:
One of the purposes of chuser command is to modify the password of an administrative user account in IBM SONAS.

When used with the -p argument, the chuser command records the administrator password in the shell command history. The shell command history can subsequently be read by the root user.

CVE-2014-3045
CVSS Base Score: 2.1
CVSS Temporal Score: See http://xforce.iss.net/xforce/xfdb/93345 for the current score

Affected Products and Versions

IBM SONAS
The product is affected when running a code releases 1.3.0.0 to 1.4.3.2

Remediation/Fixes

A fix for these issues is in version 1.4.3.3 of IBM SONAS.

Workarounds and Mitigations

Workaround(s) :
1. Modify HISTIGNORE environment variable for root user, so that chuser command will not be included in shell bash history. You could add this environment variable to .bashrc file in home directory of root user.

2. After changing password using chuser command, the admin user may get root user to clear the shell command history of root user, using history -c command.

Mitigation(s) : A fix for these issues is in version 1.4.3.3 of IBM SONAS. Customers running an affected version of IBM SONAS should upgrade to 1.4.3.3 or a later version, so that the fix gets applied.