GNOME GDM 2.8, 2.12, 2.14, and 2.15, when the "face browser" feature is enabled, allows local users to access the "Configure Login Manager" functionality using their own password instead of the root password, which can be leveraged to gain additional privileges.

This update solves a bug in GDM. This bug allows to bypass root authorization to access the login configuration. (CVE-2006-2452)

If the admin configured a gdm theme that provided an user list, any user could activate the gdm setup program by first choosing the setup option from the menu, clicking on the user list and entering his own (instead of root's) password. This allowed normal users to configure potentially dangerous features like remote or automatic login.

Please note that this does not affect a default Ubuntu installation, since the default theme does not provide an user list. In Ubuntu 6.06 you additionally have to have the 'ConfigAvailable' setting enabled in gdm.conf to be vulnerable (it is disabled by default).

Ubuntu 5.04 is not affected by this flaw.

Note that Tenable Network Security has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Ubuntu security advisory. Tenable has attempted to automatically clean and format it as much as possible without introducing additional issues.

A vulnerability in gdm could allow a user to activate the gdm setup program if the administrator configured a gdm theme that provided a user list. The user could do so by choosing the setup option from the menu, clicking the user list, then entering his own password instead of root's.

The updated packages have been patched to correct this issue.

The remote host is affected by the vulnerability described in GLSA-200606-14 (GDM: Privilege escalation)

    GDM allows a normal user to access the configuration manager.
  Impact :

    When the 'face browser' in GDM is enabled, a normal user can use the     'configure login manager' with his/her own password instead of the root     password, and thus gain additional privileges.
  Workaround :

    There is no known workaround at this time.

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
41090	SuSE9 Security Update : gdm (YOU Patch Number 11050)	Nessus	SuSE Local Security Checks	low
27865	Ubuntu 5.10 / 6.06 LTS : gdm vulnerability (USN-293-1)	Nessus	Ubuntu Local Security Checks	low
27232	openSUSE 10 Security Update : gdm (gdm-1582)	Nessus	SuSE Local Security Checks	low
21716	Mandrake Linux Security Advisory : gdm (MDKSA-2006:100)	Nessus	Mandriva Local Security Checks	low
21707	GLSA-200606-14 : GDM: Privilege escalation	Nessus	Gentoo Local Security Checks	low

Detections

Analytics

CVE-2006-2452

high

Tenable Plugins

low

low

low

low

low