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- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Gentoo Linux Security Advisory GLSA 200808-12 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://security.gentoo.org/ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Severity: High Title: Postfix: Local privilege escalation vulnerability Date: August 14, 2008 Bugs: #232642 ID: 200808-12
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Synopsis ========
Postfix incorrectly checks the ownership of a mailbox, allowing, in certain circumstances, to append data to arbitrary files on a local system with root privileges.
Background ==========
Postfix is Wietse Venema's mailer that attempts to be fast, easy to administer, and secure, as an alternative to the widely-used Sendmail program.
Affected packages =================
------------------------------------------------------------------- Package / Vulnerable / Unaffected ------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 mail-mta/postfix < 2.5.3-r1 *>= 2.4.7-r1 >= 2.5.3-r1
Description ===========
Sebastian Krahmer of SuSE has found that Postfix allows to deliver mail to root-owned symlinks in an insecure manner under certain conditions. Normally, Postfix does not deliver mail to symlinks, except to root-owned symlinks, for compatibility with the systems using symlinks in /dev like Solaris. Furthermore, some systems like Linux allow to hardlink a symlink, while the POSIX.1-2001 standard requires that the symlink is followed. Depending on the write permissions and the delivery agent being used, this can lead to an arbitrary local file overwriting vulnerability (CVE-2008-2936). Furthermore, the Postfix delivery agent does not properly verify the ownership of a mailbox before delivering mail (CVE-2008-2937).
Impact ======
The combination of these features allows a local attacker to hardlink a root-owned symlink such that the newly created symlink would be root-owned and would point to a regular file (or another symlink) that would be written by the Postfix built-in local(8) or virtual(8) delivery agents, regardless the ownership of the final destination regular file. Depending on the write permissions of the spool mail directory, the delivery style, and the existence of a root mailbox, this could allow a local attacker to append a mail to an arbitrary file like /etc/passwd in order to gain root privileges.
The default configuration of Gentoo Linux does not permit any kind of user privilege escalation.
The second vulnerability (CVE-2008-2937) allows a local attacker, already having write permissions to the mail spool directory which is not the case on Gentoo by default, to create a previously nonexistent mailbox before Postfix creates it, allowing to read the mail of another user on the system.
Workaround ==========
The following conditions should be met in order to be vulnerable to local privilege escalation.
* The mail delivery style is mailbox, with the Postfix built-in local(8) or virtual(8) delivery agents.
* The mail spool directory (/var/spool/mail) is user-writeable.
* The user can create hardlinks pointing to root-owned symlinks located in other directories.
Consequently, each one of the following workarounds is efficient.
* Verify that your /var/spool/mail directory is not writeable by a user. Normally on Gentoo, only the mail group has write access, and no end-user should be granted the mail group ownership.
* Prevent the local users from being able to create hardlinks pointing outside of the /var/spool/mail directory, e.g. with a dedicated partition.
* Use a non-builtin Postfix delivery agent, like procmail or maildrop.
* Use the maildir delivery style of Postfix ("home_mailbox=Maildir/" for example).
Concerning the second vulnerability, check the write permissions of /var/spool/mail, or check that every Unix account already has a mailbox, by using Wietse Venema's Perl script available in the official advisory.
Resolution ==========
All Postfix users should upgrade to the latest version:
# emerge --sync # emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=mail-mta/postfix-2.5.3-r1"
References ==========
[ 1 ] CVE-2008-2936 http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2008-2936 [ 2 ] CVE-2008-2937 http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2008-2937 [ 3 ] Official Advisory http://article.gmane.org/gmane.mail.postfix.announce/110
Availability ============
This GLSA and any updates to it are available for viewing at the Gentoo Security Website:
http://security.gentoo.org/glsa/glsa-200808-12.xml
Concerns? =========
Security is a primary focus of Gentoo Linux and ensuring the confidentiality and security of our users machines is of utmost importance to us. Any security concerns should be addressed to security@gentoo.org or alternatively, you may file a bug at http://bugs.gentoo.org.
License =======
Copyright 2008 Gentoo Foundation, Inc; referenced text belongs to its owner(s).
The contents of this document are licensed under the Creative Commons - Attribution / Share Alike license.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5
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