Information disclosure in GNU cpio

1) Input validation error

EUVDB-ID: #VU22598

Risk: Low

CVSSv3.1: 2.6 [CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N/E:U/RL:U/RC:C]

CVE-ID: CVE-2019-14866

CWE-ID: CWE-20 - Improper input validation

Exploit availability: No

Description

The vulnerability allows a local user to escalate privileges on the system.

The vulnerability exists due to GNU cpio does not properly validate files when writing tar headers during tar archive creation. A local user can trick the victim into creating a tar archive out of a directory with specially crafted files. As a result the generated archive may contain files that the attacker does not have access to.

Mitigation

Cybersecurity Help is currently unaware of any official solution to address this vulnerability.

Vulnerable software versions

cpio: 1.0 - 2.11

External links

http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-cpio/2019-08/msg00003.html
http://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=CVE-2019-14866

Q & A

Can this vulnerability be exploited remotely?

No. This vulnerability can be exploited locally. The attacker should have authentication credentials and successfully authenticate on the system.

How the attacker can exploit this vulnerability?

The attacker would have to trick the victim to open a a specially crafted archive.

The attacker would have to login to the system and perform certain actions in order to exploit this vulnerability.

Is there known malware, which exploits this vulnerability?

No. We are not aware of malware exploiting this vulnerability.