CVE-2019-10168

Description

The virConnectBaselineHypervisorCPU() and virConnectCompareHypervisorCPU() libvirt APIs accept an "emulator" argument to specify the program providing emulation for a domain. Since v1.2.19, libvirt will execute that program to probe the domain's capabilities. Read-only clients could specify an arbitrary path for this argument, causing libvirtd to execute a crafted executable with its own privileges.

Statement

  • This vulnerability requires access to the libvirt socket, normally in /var/run/libvirt/libvirt_sock_ro. Typically in hypervisor environments, local user accounts are not supported so no untrusted users should be able to access this socket.
  • Red Hat Gluster Storage 3 is not affected by this vulnerability as libvirtd daemon is not shipped in Gluster.

Mitigation

The Unix permissions of libvirt's read-only socket can be made more restrictive than the default (0777) by editing `/etc/libvirt/libvirtd.conf`. The settings `unix_sock_group = libvirt` and `unix_sock_ro_perms = 0770` will restrict access to only members of `libvirt`, who already have management access to virtual machines.

Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details

Info alert:Important note

CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).

CVSS v3 Score Breakdown

Red HatNVDcve.org
Base Score8.87.8N/A
Attack VectorLocalLocalN/A
Attack ComplexityLowLowN/A
Privileges RequiredLowLowN/A
User InteractionNoneNoneN/A
ScopeChangedUnchangedN/A
ConfidentialityHighHighN/A
Integrity ImpactHighHighN/A
Availability ImpactHighHighN/A

Vector

Red Hat: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

NVD: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Understanding the Weakness (CWE)

Confidentiality,Integrity,Availability

Technical Impact: Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands

An attacker could insert malicious functionality into the program by causing the program to download code that the attacker has placed into the untrusted control sphere, such as a malicious web site. This could enable the injection of malware, information exposure by granting excessive privileges or permissions to the untrusted functionality, DOM-based XSS vulnerabilities, stealing user's cookies, open redirect to malware (CWE-601), etc.

Acknowledgements

This issue was discovered by Jan Tomko (Red Hat).

Frequently Asked Questions

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