CVE-2020-1752

Description

A use-after-free vulnerability was found in glibc in the way the tilde expansion was carried out. Directory paths containing an initial tilde followed by a valid username were affected by this issue. A local attacker could exploit this flaw by creating a specially crafted path that, when processed by the glob function, would potentially lead to arbitrary code execution.

Statement

The Red Hat Product Security Team has rated this issue as having Moderate security impact. This flaw did not affect the versions of glibc as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6, as the vulnerable code was introduced in a later version of the package. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 is approaching the End of Maintenance Support 1 Phase of the support and maintenance life cycle. The flaw is not currently planned to be addressed in future updates of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, hence marked as "Will not fix". For further information, please refer to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Life Cycle and Issue Severity Classification:

[1] https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/errata

[2] https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/classification

Mitigation

Avoid the expansion of overly long directory paths.

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 Score77N/A
Attack VectorLocalLocalN/A
Attack ComplexityHighHighN/A
Privileges RequiredNoneNoneN/A
User InteractionRequiredRequiredN/A
ScopeUnchangedUnchangedN/A
ConfidentialityHighHighN/A
Integrity ImpactHighHighN/A
Availability ImpactHighHighN/A

Vector

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

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

Understanding the Weakness (CWE)

Integrity

Technical Impact: Modify Memory

The use of previously freed memory may corrupt valid data, if the memory area in question has been allocated and used properly elsewhere.

Availability

Technical Impact: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart

If chunk consolidation occurs after the use of previously freed data, the process may crash when invalid data is used as chunk information.

Confidentiality

Technical Impact: Read Memory

Read operations on freed memory can sometimes leak sensitive information instead of causing a crash

Integrity,Confidentiality,Availability

Technical Impact: Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands

If malicious data is entered before chunk consolidation can take place, it may be possible to take advantage of a write-what-where primitive to execute arbitrary code. If the newly allocated data happens to hold a class, in C++ for example, various function pointers may be scattered within the heap data. If one of these function pointers is overwritten with an address to valid shellcode, execution of arbitrary code can be achieved.

Frequently Asked Questions

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