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Home >> Browse Vulnerability Assessment Database >> Red Hat Local Security Checks >> RHSA-2003-028: pam

Vulnerability Assessment Details

RHSA-2003-028: pam

Vulnerability Assessment Summary
Check for the version of the pam packages

Detailed Explanation for this Vulnerability Assessment

Updated PAM packages are now available. These packages correct a bug in
pam_xauth's handling of authorization data for the root user.

[Updated 12 March 2003]
Added packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES and Red Hat Enterprise
Linux WS

The pam_xauth module is used to forward xauth information from user to user
in applications such as the su command.

Andreas Beck discovered that pam_xauth will forward authorization
information from the root account to unprivileged users. This could be
used by a local attacker to gain access to an administrator's X session.
To exploit this vulnerability the attacker would have to get the
administrator, as root, to use su to access the account belonging to the
attacker.

Users of pam_xauth are advised to upgrade to these errata packages which
contain a patch which adds ACL (access control list) functionality to
pam_xauth and dispermits root forwarding by default.

Thanks to Andreas Beck for reporting this issue.

Solution : http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2003-028.html
Network Security Threat Level: High

Networks Security ID:

Vulnerability Assessment Copyright: This script is Copyright (C) 2004 Tenable Network Security

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