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* Linux system service bug gives root on all major distros, exploit released
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*
LINUX SYSTEM SERVICE BUG GIVES ROOT ON ALL MAJOR DISTROS, EXPLOIT RELEASED
By
IONUT ILASCU
* January 25, 2022
* 03:44 PM
* 1
A vulnerability in Polkit's pkexec component identified as CVE-2021-4034
(PwnKit) is present in the default configuration of all major Linux
distributions and can be exploited to gain full root privileges on the system,
researchers warn today.
CVE-2021-4034 has been named PwnKit and its origin has been tracked to the
initial commit of pkexec, more than 12 years ago, meaning that all Polkit
versions are affected.
Part of the Polkit open-source application framework that negotiates the
interaction between privileged and unprivileged processes, pkexec allows an
authorized user to execute commands as another user, doubling as an alternative
to sudo.
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EASY TO EXPLOIT, POC EXPECTED SOON
Researchers at Qualys information security company found that the pkexec program
could be used by local attackers to increase privileges to root on default
installations of Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, and CentOS.
They warn that PwnKit is likely exploitable on other Linux operating systems as
well.
Bharat Jogi, Director of Vulnerability and Threat Research at Qualys explains
that PwnKit is “a memory corruption vulnerability in Polkit’s, which allows any
unprivileged user to gain full root privileges on a vulnerable system using
default polkit configuration,”
The researcher notes that the issue has been hiding in plain sight since the
first version of pkexec inn May 2009. The video below demonstrates the
exploitability of the bug:
Exploiting the flaw is so easy, the researchers say, that proof-of-concept (PoC)
exploit code is expected to become public in just a few days. The Qualys
Research Team will not release a PoC for PwnKit.
Update: An exploit has already emerged in the public space, less than three
hours after Qualys published the technical details for PwnKit. BleepingComputer
has compiled and tested the available exploit, which proved to be reliable as it
gave us root privileges on the system on all attempts.
source: BleepingComputer
Referrinng to the exploit, CERT/CC vulnerability analyst Will Dormann said that
it is both simple and universal. The researcher further tested it on an ARM64
system, showing that it works on that architecture, too.
Qualys reported the security issue responsibly on November 18, 2021, and waited
for a patch to become available before publishing the technical details behind
PwnKit.
The company strongly recommends administrators prioritize applying the patches
that Polkit’s authors released on their GitLab a couple of hours ago.
Linux distros had access to the patch a couple of weeks before today’s
coordinated disclosure from Qualys and are expected to release updated pkexec
packages starting today.
Ubuntu has already pushed updates for PolicyKit to address the vulnerability in
versions 14.04 and 16.04 ESM (extended security maintenance) as well as in more
recent versions 18.04, 20.04, and 21.04. Users just need to run a standard
system update and then reboot the computer for the changes to take effect.
Red Hat has also delivered a security update for polkit on Workstation and on
Enterprise products for supported architectures, as well as for extended life
cycle support, TUS, and AUS.
A temporary mitigation for operating systems that have yet to push a patch is to
use the following command to strip pkexec of the setuid bit:
chmod 0755 /usr/bin/pkexec
Users that want to look for signs of PwnKit exploitation can do it by checking
the logs for either “The value for the SHELL variable was not found the
/etc/shells file” or “The value for environment variable […] contains suspicious
content.” entries.
However, Qualys notes that exploiting PwnKit is possible without leaving a
trace.
Last year, GitHub Security Lab researcher Kevin Backhouse discovered another old
privilege escalation vulnerability affecting Polkit.
The bug had been present for seven years, since version 0.113 of the component
and affected popular Linux distros including RHEL 8, Fedora 21 (or later),
Ubuntu 20.04, and unstable versions of Debian ('bullseye') and its derivatives.
Update [January 25, 17:26 EST]: Added security notices on PolicyKit / Polkit
from Ubuntu and Red Hat.
Update [January 25, 17:43 EST]: Article updated with information about
proof-of-concept exploit code being publicly available.
RELATED ARTICLES:
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UK govt releasing Nmap scripts to find unpatched vulnerabilities
* CVE-2021-4034
* Linux
* pkexec
* polkit
* Privilege Escalation
* PwnKit
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*
IONUT ILASCU
Ionut Ilascu is a technology writer with a focus on all things cybersecurity.
The topics he writes about include malware, vulnerabilities, exploits and
security defenses, as well as research and innovation in information security.
His work has been published by Bitdefender, Netgear, The Security Ledger and
Softpedia.
* Previous Article
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COMMENTS
* KENSETTLE949 - 5 HOURS AGO
*
*
That chmod would strip setuid and setgid permissions (to act as another user
or group) from pkexec, but you would probably need to be root or add a sudo
to run it.
In an ideal world, the patches would already be applied and updates available
BEFORE the disclosure of something so easily exploited. I wonder why three
months was not long enough for this to happen in this case.
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