Overview
inn, a network news agent, may be configured on some operating systems to use a publically-writeable directory for its temporary files. This may be exploited to gain access to the news account.
Description
inn is distributed on a variety of Linux platforms. The program is written under the assumption that the directory in which it stores temporary files is a private directory. On some platforms, it may be configured to create temporary files in /tmp or /var/tmp, both of which are world-writeable directories. This may leave inn subject to modification of files either by symbolic links, or by direct modification of the temporary files. |
Impact
By creating a symbolic link named for the temporary file and pointed toward an inn configuration file, an attacker may cause modification of these files (or any other file writable by the news user). Should the attacker manage to control the content of these files, it may be possible to gain access to the news account. |
Solution
Apply vendor patches; see the Systems Affected section below. |
Reconfigure inn to use a non-world-writable temporary directory. |
Vendor Information
CVSS Metrics
| Group | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|
| Base | ||
| Temporal | ||
| Environmental |
References
Acknowledgements
This vulnerability was first described by Greg Kroah-Hartman.
This document was last modified by Tim Shimeall.
Other Information
| CVE IDs: | CVE-2001-0139 |
| Severity Metric: | 5.40 |
| Date Public: | 2001-01-10 |
| Date First Published: | 2001-09-27 |
| Date Last Updated: | 2001-09-27 14:12 UTC |
| Document Revision: | 14 |