CVE-2018-4180
Description
It was discovered that CUPS allows non-root users to pass environment variables to CUPS backends. Affected backends use attacker-controlled environment variables without proper sanitization. A local attacker, who is part of one of the groups specified in the SystemGroups directive, could use the cupsctl binary to set SetEnv and PassEnv directives and potentially controls the flow of the affected backend, resulting in some cases in arbitrary code execution with root privileges.
Mitigation
Do not add untrusted users to sys and root groups.
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 Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 6.7 | 7.8 | N/A |
| Attack Vector | Local | Local | N/A |
| Attack Complexity | Low | Low | N/A |
| Privileges Required | High | Low | N/A |
| User Interaction | None | None | N/A |
| Scope | Unchanged | Unchanged | N/A |
| Confidentiality | High | High | N/A |
| Integrity Impact | High | High | N/A |
| Availability Impact | High | High | N/A |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Not sure what something means? Check out our Security Glossary.
Want to get errata notifications? Sign up here.