CVE-2021-31535
Description
A missing validation flaw was found in libX11. This flaw allows an attacker to inject X11 protocol commands on X clients, and in some cases, also bypass, authenticate (via injection of control characters), or potentially execute arbitrary code with permissions of the application compiled with libX11. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to confidentiality, integrity, as well as system availability.
Statement
This flaw was rated with an important severity as it allows an attacker to inject X11 protocol commands on X clients with the privileges of the application linked with the libX11 library, potentially having administrative privileges. However, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 and 9 do not run the Xorg server with root privileges, lowering the security impact of this issue. For this reason, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 and 9 have been rated with a moderate severity.
Mitigation
xterm should not be used to display less trusted data, e.g. from SSH connections to less trusted remote machines.
To avoid attacks via .Xdefaults on kiosk type machines, where graphical user has no permission to execute arbitrary operating system commands or sometimes not even to send hardware keyboard keystrokes, the .Xdefaults must not be modifiable by the user.
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 | 8.1 | 9.8 | N/A |
| Attack Vector | Network | Network | N/A |
| Attack Complexity | High | Low | N/A |
| Privileges Required | None | None | 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:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Confidentiality,Integrity
Technical Impact: Read Memory; Modify Memory; Varies by Context
Frequently Asked Questions
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