-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- __________________________________________________________ The U.S. Department of Energy Computer Incident Advisory Capability ___ __ __ _ ___ / | /_\ / \___ __|__ / \ \___ __________________________________________________________ INFORMATION BULLETIN HP Current Directory Vulnerability HP Daily Security Bulletins Digest HPSBUX9907-100 July 22, 1999 23:00 GMT Number J-053 ______________________________________________________________________________ PROBLEM: The current directory is in the root user's PATH after logging in using CDE. The root user should not have the current directory in the PATH. PLATFORM: HP 9000 series 700/800 at HP-UX revision 10.X. DAMAGE: Potential for unauthorized increase in privileges. SOLUTION: Modify /usr/dt/bin/Xsession as indicated in the bulletin until a patch is available. ______________________________________________________________________________ VULNERABILITY The risk is Medium because there are several possible ways ASSESSMENT: that a user can get an unauthorized increase in privileges through this PATH problem. The workaround should be used until a patch is available. ______________________________________________________________________________ [ Start Hewlett-Packard Advisory ] Digest Name: Daily Security Bulletins Digest Created: Tue Jul 20 3:00:02 PDT 1999 Table of Contents: Document ID Title - --------------- ----------- HPSBUX9907-100 CDE Leaves Current Directory in root PATH The documents are listed below. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ - - Document ID: HPSBUX9907-100 Date Loaded: 19990719 Title: CDE Leaves Current Directory in root PATH - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- **REVISED 01** HEWLETT-PACKARD COMPANY SECURITY BULLETIN: #00100, 07 July 1999 Last Revised: 19 July 1999 - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The information in the following Security Bulletin should be acted upon as soon as possible. Hewlett-Packard Company will not be liable for any consequences to any customer resulting from customer's failure to fully implement instructions in this Security Bulletin as soon as possible. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- PROBLEM: The current directory is in the root user's PATH after logging in using CDE. PLATFORM: HP 9000 series 700/800 at HP-UX revision 10.X DAMAGE: Increase in privileges.. SOLUTION: Modify /usr/dt/bin/Xsession until a patch is available. AVAILABILITY: This advisory will be updated when patches are available. CHANGE SUMMARY: HTML to text conversion instructions for script added. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- I. A. Background - The PATH environemnt variable is constructed from several sources including dtsearchpath and scripts in /etc/dt/config/Xsession.d/ and /usr/dt/config/Xsession.d/. The resulting PATH contains the string "::" which will be interpreted as the current directory. The root user should not have the current directory in the PATH. B. Fixing the problem - Since the PATH environment variable can be affected by dtsearchpath and several scripts, the recommended solution is to clean up the root user's PATH after is has been created. **REVISED 01** Note: This file is in HTML format. If you are editing the text version from a mailing the line below: for (i=1; i<=n; i++) { must be changed. Replace the characters between the second "i" and the "=n" with the single "less than" character (ascii 0x3c). The line will then read: for (i=1; iX=n; i++) { where X stands for the "less than" character. In /usr/dt/bin/Xsession just before this: # ########################################################################### # # Startup section. Add this: ###################### Clean up $PATH for root ########################## if [ "$USER" = "root" ] then Log "Clean up PATH for root user" Log "Old PATH = $PATH" PATH=`echo $PATH | awk ' { # Remove elements from PATH that are # (a) "." # (b) "" # (c) blank # gsub (" ",":", $0) # Substitite ":" for each blank n = split ($0, path, ":") # Split into elements with ":" as delimiter first = 1 # To suppress leading ":" in new PATH for (i=1; i<=n; i++) { len = length(path[i]) dot = index(path[i], ".") dot_only = 0 if ((len == 1) && (dot==1)) { dot_only = 1 } # print element if it is not "" and not "." if (!(len==0) && !(dot_only==1)) { if(first != 1) { printf (":") # if not first element, print ":" in front } printf ("%s",path[i]) first = 0 } } } END { printf ("\n") }'` Log "New PATH = $PATH" fi ###################### End - Clean up $PATH for root #################### C. 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HP is not liable for any misuse of this information by any third party. ________________________________________________________________________ - -----End of Document ID: HPSBUX9907-100-------------------------------------- [ End Hewlett-Packard Advisory ] ______________________________________________________________________________ CIAC wishes to acknowledge Hewlett-Packard for the information contained in this bulletin. ______________________________________________________________________________ CIAC, the Computer Incident Advisory Capability, is the computer security incident response team for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the emergency backup response team for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). CIAC is located at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California. 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LAST 10 CIAC BULLETINS ISSUED (Previous bulletins available from CIAC) J-043: Creating/Installing Warning Banners J-044: Tru64/Digital UNIX (dtlogin) Security Vulnerability J-045: Vulnerability in statd exposes vulnerability in automountd J-046: HP-UX VVOS NES Vulnerability J-047: The ExploreZip Worm J-048: Malformed HTR Request Vulnerability J-049: Windows NT, Two Denial-of-Service Vulnerabilities J-050: HP-UX Visualize Conference Vulnerability J-051: Calendar Manager Service Buffer Overflow Vulnerability J-052: SGI arrayd default security configuration -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 4.0 Business Edition iQCVAwUBN5iSzLnzJzdsy3QZAQH+cAQAsZQvFo62vSfSNYuRkZp+lTtzP3s6LrPK DHWiQbETrZNg1pEvU3dktkSMgRZeSj745eyECPdX+MYaHU5E6kgTPfNVtjifm5Zr g/XbOmKnp4ROo1V4c8zwYRqev/O1XHCrsa9LWZZjE2MPWCR/yFXkIWONYyRVpsoE yUcVUHtm/WY= =Qoii -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----