RHSA-2013:1270 - Security Advisory

Topic

Updated polkit packages that fix one security issue are now available for
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having
important 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

PolicyKit is a toolkit for defining and handling authorizations.

A race condition was found in the way the PolicyKit pkcheck utility
checked process authorization when the process was specified by its process
ID via the --process option. A local user could use this flaw to bypass
intended PolicyKit authorizations and escalate their privileges.
(CVE-2013-4288)

Note: Applications that invoke pkcheck with the --process option need to be
modified to use the pid,pid-start-time,uid argument for that option, to
allow pkcheck to check process authorization correctly.

Red Hat would like to thank Sebastian Krahmer of the SUSE Security Team for
reporting this issue.

All polkit users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain a
backported patch to correct this issue. The system must be rebooted for
this update to take effect.

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
https://access.redhat.com/site/articles/11258

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 6.4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 6.4 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - AUS 6.4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 6 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems - Extended Update Support 6.4 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 6.4 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Scientific Computing 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Update Support from RHUI 6.4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Update Support from RHUI 6.4 i386
• Red Hat Gluster Storage Server for On-premise 2.1 x86_64
• Red Hat Storage for Public Cloud (via RHUI) 2.1 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 6 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux EUS Compute Node 6.4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support (for IBM z Systems) 6 s390x

Fixes

• BZ - 1002375 - CVE-2013-4288 polkit: unix-process subject for authorization is racy

CVEs

• CVE-2013-4288

References

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