gnome-shell 3.22 through 3.24.1 mishandles extensions that fail to reload, which can lead to leaving extensions enabled in the lock screen. With these extensions, a bystander could launch applications (but not interact with them), see information from the extensions (e.g., what applications you have opened or what music you were playing), or even execute arbitrary commands. It all depends on what extensions a user has enabled. The problem is caused by lack of exception handling in js/ui/extensionSystem.js.

The remote Ubuntu 16.04 LTS host has packages installed that are affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the USN-7052-1 advisory.

    It was discovered that GNOME Shell mishandled extensions that fail to reload, possibly leading to     extensions staying enabled on the lock screen. An attacker could possibly use this issue to launch     applications, view

    sensitive information, or execute arbitrary commands. (CVE-2017-8288)

    It was discovered that the GNOME Shell incorrectly handled certain keyboard inputs. An attacker could     possibly use this issue to invoke keyboard shortcuts, and potentially other actions while the workstation     was locked. (CVE-2019-3820)

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

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

This update for gnome-shell provides the following fixes :

  - Fix not intuitive login screen for root user     (bsc#1047262)

  - Disable session selection button when it's hidden in     user switch dialog (bsc#1034584, bsc#1034827)

  - Fix app windows overlay app list in overview screen     (bsc#1008539)

  - Properly handle failures when loading extensions     (bsc#1036494, CVE-2017-8288)

This update was imported from the SUSE:SLE-12-SP2:Update update project.

This update for gnome-shell provides the following fixes :

  - Fix not intuitive login screen for root user     (bsc#1047262)

  - Disable session selection button when it's hidden in     user switch dialog (bsc#1034584, bsc#1034827)

  - Fix app windows overlay app list in overview screen     (bsc#1008539)

  - Properly handle failures when loading extensions     (bsc#1036494, CVE-2017-8288)

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

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
208068	Ubuntu 16.04 LTS : GNOME Shell vulnerabilities (USN-7052-1)	Nessus	Ubuntu Local Security Checks	high
102812	openSUSE Security Update : gnome-shell (openSUSE-2017-974)	Nessus	SuSE Local Security Checks	high
102627	SUSE SLED12 / SLES12 Security Update : gnome-shell (SUSE-SU-2017:2217-1)	Nessus	SuSE Local Security Checks	high

Detections

Analytics

CVE-2017-8288

high

Tenable Plugins

high

high

high