Linux Virtual Server/Secure Context procfs shared permissions flaw | 04.07.2004 | Cru

Linux Virtual Server/Secure Context procfs shared permissions flaw
==================================================================

2004-07-02, Veit Wahlich <cru (at) zodia (dot) de>

Official location of this document:
http://ircnet.de/psp-engine/article.psp?show=vsproc


Product|
-------+

Linux Virtual Server extends the Linux kernel to provide the ability to
run several virtual servers on a single host system. In contrast to
other virtualization attempts Linux Virtual Server uses a split-
userland architechture under a single kernel to optimize sharing of all
resources and reduce resource consumption overhead per VM to the
absolute minimum.
http://www.linux-vserver.org/


Synopsis|
--------+

During a security audit on the vproc security scheme a permission-
sharing vulnerability was discovered.


Vulnerable|
----------+

<= 1.27 (Linux 2.4 stable branch)
<= 1.3.9 (Linux 2.4 devel branch)
<= 1.9.1 (Linux 2.6 devel branch)


Severity|
--------+

- local DoS
- creation of information leaks

See details below.


History|
-------+

2004-06-30  vuln discovered
2004-07-02  vendor informed
2004-07-03  first vendor response, confirmation
2004-07-04  official fix available, advisory release


Description|
-----------+

While auditing and experimenting with VServer procfs and vproc security
we discovered a problem sharing permissions on the procfs mounted
directories:

Within any context users are still able to change permissions on /proc,
both access permission and ownership. That is just fine as many people
would like to restrict access to /proc to the root user or a group of
trusted users.

But as changes to a procfs mountpoint do not apply to the mountpoint
itself but to procfs in general, these changes affect all contexts
(VServers) and even the host system.

All tests were done against the stable branch (1.2x) but regarding to
Herbert Poetzl, the problem exists on both devel branches (1.3.x,
1.9.x), too.

Version 1.28 (stable branch) resolves this problem.


Exploitation|
------------+

The vulnerability may be locally exploited in two ways:

1. From within a virtual server a denial of service attack (DoS) may be
provoked towards other virtual servers and the host system.
By setting permissions that prevent users other than root to read
information from procfs (i.e. process information) will disable a wide
range of services.

2. On systems where access to procfs is allowed to root only (or to a
group of trusted users; i.e. shared hosting environments), an attacker
may use access to another virtual server to gain critical information
about processes or other data on the primary target virtual server (or
the host system).


Work-around|
-----------+

To work around this problem, procfs may be mounted read-only. On the
host-system do:

# mount -o remount,ro /proc

As this also prevents the host system from changing any values in
/proc, this should just be a temporary solution!

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