Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 update for procps-ng

1) Privilege escalation

EUVDB-ID: #VU12975

Risk: Low

CVSSv3.1: 7 [CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H/E:P/RL:O/RC:C]

CVE-ID: CVE-2018-1122

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

Exploit availability: Yes

Description

The vulnerability allows a local attacker to gain elevated privileges on the target system.

The weakness exists due to top reads its configuration file from the current working directory, without any security check, if the HOME environment variable is unset or empty. A local attacker can exploit one of several vulnerabilities in top's config_file() function, execute top in /tmp (for example) and gain elevated privileges.

Mitigation

Install updates from vendor's website.

Vulnerable software versions

Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support: 7.5

Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, little endian - Extended Update Support: 7.5

Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support: 7.5

Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems - Extended Update Support: 7.5

Red Hat Enterprise Linux EUS Compute Node: 7.5

procps-ng (Red Hat package): before 3.3.10-17.el7_5.4

External links

http://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2020:1265

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.

Is there known malware, which exploits this vulnerability?

No. We are not aware of malware exploiting this vulnerability. However, proof of concept for this vulnerability is available.