USN-1237-1: PAM vulnerabilities
24 October 2011
PAM could be made to crash or run programs as an administrator.
Releases
Packages
- pam - Pluggable Authentication Modules
Details
Kees Cook discovered that the PAM pam_env module incorrectly handled
certain malformed environment files. A local attacker could use this flaw
to cause a denial of service, or possibly gain privileges. The default
compiler options for affected releases should reduce the vulnerability to a
denial of service. (CVE-2011-3148)
Kees Cook discovered that the PAM pam_env module incorrectly handled
variable expansion. A local attacker could use this flaw to cause a denial
of service. (CVE-2011-3149)
Stephane Chazelas discovered that the PAM pam_motd module incorrectly
cleaned the environment during execution of the motd scripts. In certain
environments, a local attacker could use this to execute arbitrary code
as root, and gain privileges.
Update instructions
The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following package versions:
Ubuntu 8.04
Ubuntu 11.10
Ubuntu 11.04
Ubuntu 10.10
Ubuntu 10.04
In general, a standard system update will make all the necessary changes.