The staprun runtime tool in SystemTap 1.3 does not verify that a module to unload was previously loaded by SystemTap, which allows local users to cause a denial of service (unloading of arbitrary kernel modules).

The remote Oracle Linux 5 / 6 host has packages installed that are affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the ELSA-2010-0894 advisory.

    - CVE-2010-4170

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Oracle Linux security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for these issues but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

It was discovered that staprun did not properly sanitize the environment before executing the modprobe command to load an additional kernel module. A local, unprivileged user could use this flaw to escalate their privileges. (CVE-2010-4170)

It was discovered that staprun did not check if the module to be unloaded was previously loaded by SystemTap. A local, unprivileged user could use this flaw to unload an arbitrary kernel module that was not in use. (CVE-2010-4171)

Note: After installing this update, users already in the stapdev group must be added to the stapusr group in order to be able to run the staprun tool.

Several vulnerabilities were discovered in SystemTap, an instrumentation system for Linux :

  - CVE-2011-2503     It was discovered that a race condition in staprun could     lead to privilege escalation. 

  - CVE-2010-4170     It was discovered that insufficient validation of     environment variables in staprun could lead to privilege     escalation.

  - CVE-2010-4171     It was discovered that insufficient validation of module     unloading could lead to denial of service.

Updated systemtap packages that fix two security issues are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6.

The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having important security impact. Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base scores, which give detailed severity ratings, are available for each vulnerability from the CVE links in the References section.

SystemTap is an instrumentation system for systems running the Linux kernel, version 2.6. Developers can write scripts to collect data on the operation of the system. staprun, the SystemTap runtime tool, is used for managing SystemTap kernel modules (for example, loading them).

It was discovered that staprun did not properly sanitize the environment before executing the modprobe command to load an additional kernel module. A local, unprivileged user could use this flaw to escalate their privileges. (CVE-2010-4170)

It was discovered that staprun did not check if the module to be unloaded was previously loaded by SystemTap. A local, unprivileged user could use this flaw to unload an arbitrary kernel module that was not in use. (CVE-2010-4171)

Note: After installing this update, users already in the stapdev group must be added to the stapusr group in order to be able to run the staprun tool.

Red Hat would like to thank Tavis Ormandy for reporting these issues.

SystemTap users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches to correct these issues.

This refresh corrects two important security bugs in the /usr/bin/staprun program of the systemtap-runtime package.

CVE-2010-4171 Ability to remove unused modules by unprivileged user CVE-2010-4170 Insecure loading of modules

We would like to thank Tavis Ormandy for reporting this issue.

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

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
68146	Oracle Linux 5 / 6 : systemtap (ELSA-2010-0894)	Nessus	Oracle Linux Local Security Checks	medium
60904	Scientific Linux Security Update : systemtap on SL5.x i386/x86_64	Nessus	Scientific Linux Local Security Checks	high
56881	Debian DSA-2348-1 : systemtap - several vulnerabilities	Nessus	Debian Local Security Checks	high
50809	CentOS 5 : systemtap (CESA-2010:0894)	Nessus	CentOS Local Security Checks	high
50657	Fedora 13 : systemtap-1.3-3.fc13 (2010-17873)	Nessus	Fedora Local Security Checks	high
50656	Fedora 12 : systemtap-1.3-3.fc12 (2010-17868)	Nessus	Fedora Local Security Checks	high
50655	Fedora 14 : systemtap-1.3-3.fc14 (2010-17865)	Nessus	Fedora Local Security Checks	high
50646	RHEL 5 / 6 : systemtap (RHSA-2010:0894)	Nessus	Red Hat Local Security Checks	high

Detections

Analytics

CVE-2010-4171

medium

Tenable Plugins

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