CVE-2019-12749 - Improper Authentication

Severity

36%

Complexity

39%

Confidentiality

81%

dbus before 1.10.28, 1.12.x before 1.12.16, and 1.13.x before 1.13.12, as used in DBusServer in Canonical Upstart in Ubuntu 14.04 (and in some, less common, uses of dbus-daemon), allows cookie spoofing because of symlink mishandling in the reference implementation of DBUS_COOKIE_SHA1 in the libdbus library. (This only affects the DBUS_COOKIE_SHA1 authentication mechanism.) A malicious client with write access to its own home directory could manipulate a ~/.dbus-keyrings symlink to cause a DBusServer with a different uid to read and write in unintended locations. In the worst case, this could result in the DBusServer reusing a cookie that is known to the malicious client, and treating that cookie as evidence that a subsequent client connection came from an attacker-chosen uid, allowing authentication bypass.

dbus before 1.10.28, 1.12.x before 1.12.16, and 1.13.x before 1.13.12, as used in DBusServer in Canonical Upstart in Ubuntu 14.04 (and in some, less common, uses of dbus-daemon), allows cookie spoofing because of symlink mishandling in the reference implementation of DBUS_COOKIE_SHA1 in the libdbus library. (This only affects the DBUS_COOKIE_SHA1 authentication mechanism.) A malicious client with write access to its own home directory could manipulate a ~/.dbus-keyrings symlink to cause a DBusServer with a different uid to read and write in unintended locations. In the worst case, this could result in the DBusServer reusing a cookie that is known to the malicious client, and treating that cookie as evidence that a subsequent client connection came from an attacker-chosen uid, allowing authentication bypass.

CVSS 3.0 Base Score 7.1. CVSS Attack Vector: local. CVSS Attack Complexity: low. CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N).

CVSS 2.0 Base Score 3.6. CVSS Attack Vector: local. CVSS Attack Complexity: low. CVSS Vector: (AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:N).

Demo Examples

Improper Authentication

CWE-287

The following code intends to ensure that the user is already logged in. If not, the code performs authentication with the user-provided username and password. If successful, it sets the loggedin and user cookies to "remember" that the user has already logged in. Finally, the code performs administrator tasks if the logged-in user has the "Administrator" username, as recorded in the user cookie.


               
}
}
ExitError("Error: you need to log in first");
);
);
DoAdministratorTasks();

Unfortunately, this code can be bypassed. The attacker can set the cookies independently so that the code does not check the username and password. The attacker could do this with an HTTP request containing headers such as:


               
[body of request]

By setting the loggedin cookie to "true", the attacker bypasses the entire authentication check. By using the "Administrator" value in the user cookie, the attacker also gains privileges to administer the software.

Improper Authentication

CWE-287

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