Privilege escalation in MariaDB

1) Permissions, Privileges, and Access Controls

EUVDB-ID: #VU24937

Risk: High

CVSSv3.1: 7.7 [CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H/E:U/RL:O/RC:C]

CVE-ID: CVE-2020-7221

CWE-ID: CWE-264 - Permissions, Privileges, and Access Controls

Exploit availability: No

Description

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

The vulnerability exists in the "mysql_install_db" script due to "chown" and "chmod" are performed unsafely, as demonstrated by a symlink attack on a chmod 04755 of auth_pam_tool_dir/auth_pam_tool. A remote user can gain root privileges on the target system.

Note: This vulnerability does not affect the Oracle MySQL product, which implements mysql_install_db differently.

Mitigation

Install updates from vendor's website.

Vulnerable software versions

MariaDB: 10.4.7 - 10.4.11

External links

http://bugzilla.suse.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1160868
http://github.com/MariaDB/server/commit/9d18b6246755472c8324bf3e20e234e08ac45618
http://seclists.org/oss-sec/2020/q1/55

Q & A

Can this vulnerability be exploited remotely?

Yes. This vulnerability can be exploited by a remote authenticated user via the Internet.

Is there known malware, which exploits this vulnerability?

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