RHSA-2010:0895 - Security Advisory

Topic

Updated systemtap packages that fix one security issue are now available
for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.

The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having moderate
security impact. A Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base score,
which gives a detailed severity rating, is available from the CVE link in
the References section.

Description

SystemTap is an instrumentation system for systems running the Linux
kernel, version 2.6. Developers can write scripts to collect data on the
operation of the system. staprun, the SystemTap runtime tool, is used for
managing SystemTap kernel modules (for example, loading them).

It was discovered that staprun did not properly sanitize the environment
before executing the modprobe command to load an additional kernel module.
A local, unprivileged user could use this flaw to escalate their
privileges. (CVE-2010-4170)

Note: On Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, an attacker must be a member of the
stapusr group to exploit this issue. Also note that, after installing this
update, users already in the stapdev group must be added to the stapusr
group in order to be able to run the staprun tool.

Red Hat would like to thank Tavis Ormandy for reporting this issue.

SystemTap users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain
a backported patch to correct this issue.

Solution

Before applying this update, make sure all previously-released errata
relevant to your system have been applied.

This update is available via the Red Hat Network. Details on how to
use the Red Hat Network to apply this update are available at
http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/docs/DOC-11259

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 4 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 4 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 4.8 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 4.8 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 4.8 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 4 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 4 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 4 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 4 ppc
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 4.8 ppc

Fixes

• BZ - 653604 - CVE-2010-4170 Systemtap: Insecure loading of modules

CVEs

• CVE-2010-4170

References

• https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#moderate