Synopsis
The remote Amazon Linux 2 host is missing a security update.
Description
The version of ansible installed on the remote host is prior to 2.9.9-1. It is, therefore, affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the ALAS2ANSIBLE2-2023-008 advisory.
A flaw was found in Ansible Engine, all versions 2.7.x, 2.8.x and 2.9.x prior to 2.7.17, 2.8.9 and 2.9.6 respectively, when using ansible_facts as a subkey of itself and promoting it to a variable when inject is enabled, overwriting the ansible_facts after the clean. An attacker could take advantage of this by altering the ansible_facts, such as ansible_hosts, users and any other key data which would lead into privilege escalation or code injection. (CVE-2020-10684)
A flaw was found in Ansible Engine affecting Ansible Engine versions 2.7.x before 2.7.17 and 2.8.x before 2.8.11 and 2.9.x before 2.9.7 as well as Ansible Tower before and including versions 3.4.5 and 3.5.5 and 3.6.3 when using modules which decrypts vault files such as assemble, script, unarchive, win_copy, aws_s3 or copy modules. The temporary directory is created in /tmp leaves the s ts unencrypted. On Operating Systems which /tmp is not a tmpfs but part of the root partition, the directory is only cleared on boot and the decryp emains when the host is switched off. The system will be vulnerable when the system is not running. So decrypted data must be cleared as soon as possible and the data which normally is encrypted ble. (CVE-2020-10685)
An archive traversal flaw was found in all ansible-engine versions 2.9.x prior to 2.9.7, when running ansible-galaxy collection install. When extracting a collection .tar.gz file, the directory is created without sanitizing the filename. An attacker could take advantage to overwrite any file within the system.
(CVE-2020-10691)
A race condition flaw was found in Ansible Engine 2.7.17 and prior, 2.8.9 and prior, 2.9.6 and prior when running a playbook with an unprivileged become user. When Ansible needs to run a module with become user, the temporary directory is created in /var/tmp. This directory is created with umask 77 && mkdir -p <dir>; this operation does not fail if the directory already exists and is owned by another user. An attacker could take advantage to gain control of the become user as the target directory can be retrieved by iterating '/proc/<pid>/cmdline'. (CVE-2020-1733)
A flaw was found in the Ansible Engine when the fetch module is used. An attacker could intercept the module, inject a new path, and then choose a new destination path on the controller node. All versions in 2.7.x, 2.8.x and 2.9.x branches are believed to be vulnerable. (CVE-2020-1735)
A flaw was found in Ansible Engine when using Ansible Vault for editing encrypted files. When a user executes ansible-vault edit, another user on the same computer can read the old and new secret, as it is created in a temporary file with mkstemp and the returned file descriptor is closed and the method write_data is called to write the existing secret in the file. This method will delete the file before recreating it insecurely. All versions in 2.7.x, 2.8.x and 2.9.x branches are believed to be vulnerable.
(CVE-2020-1740)
A flaw was found in the Ansible Engine affecting Ansible Engine versions 2.7.x before 2.7.17 and 2.8.x before 2.8.11 and 2.9.x before 2.9.7 as well as Ansible Tower before and including versions 3.4.5 and 3.5.5 and 3.6.3 when the ldap_attr and ldap_entry community modules are used. The issue discloses the LDAP bind password to stdout or a log file if a playbook task is written using the bind_pw in the parameters field. The highest threat from this vulnerability is data confidentiality. (CVE-2020-1746)
A security flaw was found in Ansible Engine, all Ansible 2.7.x versions prior to 2.7.17, all Ansible 2.8.x versions prior to 2.8.11 and all Ansible 2.9.x versions prior to 2.9.7, when managing kubernetes using the k8s module. Sensitive parameters such as passwords and tokens are passed to kubectl from the command line, not using an environment variable or an input configuration file. This will disclose passwords and tokens from process list and no_log directive from debug module would not have any effect making these secrets being disclosed on stdout and log files. (CVE-2020-1753)
Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the tested product security advisory.
Note that Nessus has not tested for these issues but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.
Solution
Run 'yum update ansible' to update your system.
Plugin Details
File Name: al2_ALASANSIBLE2-2023-008.nasl
Agent: unix
Supported Sensors: Agentless Assessment, Continuous Assessment, Frictionless Assessment Agent, Frictionless Assessment AWS, Nessus Agent, Nessus
Risk Information
Vector: CVSS2#AV:L/AC:H/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H
Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:P/RL:O/RC:C
Vulnerability Information
CPE: p-cpe:/a:amazon:linux:ansible, p-cpe:/a:amazon:linux:ansible-doc, cpe:/o:amazon:linux:2
Required KB Items: Host/local_checks_enabled, Host/AmazonLinux/release, Host/AmazonLinux/rpm-list
Exploit Ease: Exploits are available
Patch Publication Date: 8/21/2023
Vulnerability Publication Date: 12/19/2019