CVE-2014-4699
Description
It was found that the Linux kernel's ptrace subsystem allowed a traced process' instruction pointer to be set to a non-canonical memory address without forcing the non-sysret code path when returning to user space. A local, unprivileged user could use this flaw to crash the system or, potentially, escalate their privileges on the system.
Note: The CVE-2014-4699 issue only affected systems using an Intel CPU.
Statement
This issue does not affect the versions of the Linux kernel as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.
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 v2 Score Breakdown
| Red Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 6.9 | 6.9 | N/A |
| Attack Vector | Local | Local | N/A |
| Access Complexity | Medium | Medium | N/A |
| Authentication | None | None | N/A |
| Confidentiality Impact | Complete | Complete | N/A |
| Integrity Impact | Complete | Complete | N/A |
| Availability Impact | Complete | Complete | N/A |
Vector
Red Hat: AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C
NVD: AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Access Control
Technical Impact: Bypass Protection Mechanism; Gain Privileges or Assume Identity
An attacker could potentially modify the state in malicious ways. If the state is related to the privileges or level of authentication that the user has, then state modification might allow the user to bypass authentication or elevate privileges.
Confidentiality
Technical Impact: Read Application Data
The state variables may contain sensitive information that should not be known by the client.
Availability
Technical Impact: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart
By modifying state variables, the attacker could violate the application's expectations for the contents of the state, leading to a denial of service due to an unexpected error condition.
Acknowledgements
Red Hat would like to thank Andy Lutomirski for reporting this issue.
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