CVE-2021-20315

Description

A locking protection bypass flaw was found in some versions of gnome-shell as shipped within CentOS Stream 8, when the "Application menu" or "Window list" GNOME extensions are enabled. This flaw allows a physical attacker who has access to a locked system to kill existing applications and start new ones as the locked user, even if the session is still locked.

Statement

The flaw only affects some specific versions of CentOS Stream 8. This issue did not affect the versions of gnome-shell as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, and 8 as they did not include the vulnerable code.

Mitigation

Disable enabled GNOME extensions, such as "Application menu" or "Window list".

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).

The following CVSS metrics and score provided are preliminary and subject to review.

CVSS v3 Score Breakdown

Red HatNVDcve.org
Base Score5.76.1N/A
Attack VectorPhysicalPhysicalN/A
Attack ComplexityLowLowN/A
Privileges RequiredNoneNoneN/A
User InteractionNoneNoneN/A
ScopeUnchangedUnchangedN/A
ConfidentialityLowNoneN/A
Integrity ImpactHighHighN/A
Availability ImpactLowHighN/A

Vector

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

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

Understanding the Weakness (CWE)

Availability

Technical Impact: DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU)

Inconsistent locking discipline can lead to deadlock.

Frequently Asked Questions

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