Detections
Analytics

Ubuntu 4.10 / 5.04 : gdb vulnerabilities (USN-135-1)

high Nessus Plugin ID 20526

Synopsis

The remote Ubuntu host is missing a security-related patch.

Description

Tavis Ormandy found an integer overflow in the GNU debugger. By tricking an user into merely load a specially crafted executable, an attacker could exploit this to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user running gdb. However, loading untrusted binaries without actually executing them is rather uncommon, so the risk of this flaw is low. (CAN-2005-1704)

Tavis Ormandy also discovered that gdb loads and executes the file '.gdbinit' in the current directory even if the file belongs to a different user. By tricking an user into run gdb in a directory with a malicious .gdbinit file, a local attacker could exploit this to run arbitrary commands with the privileges of the user invoking gdb.
(CAN-2005-1705).

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.

Solution

Update the affected gdb package.

Plugin Details

Severity: High

ID: 20526

File Name: ubuntu_USN-135-1.nasl

Version: 1.17

Type: local

Agent: unix

Published: 1/15/2006

Updated: 1/19/2021

Supported Sensors: Frictionless Assessment AWS, Frictionless Assessment Azure, Frictionless Assessment Agent, Nessus Agent, Agentless Assessment, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 5.9

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 7.2

Temporal Score: 5.3

Vector: CVSS2#AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:gdb, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:4.10, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:5.04

Required KB Items: Host/cpu, Host/Debian/dpkg-l, Host/Ubuntu, Host/Ubuntu/release

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 5/27/2005

Vulnerability Publication Date: 5/27/2005

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2005-1704, CVE-2005-1705

USN: 135-1