Apple Mac OS X TruBlueEnvironment privilege elevation

macos-trublueenvironment-gain-privileges (11332) The risk level is classified as HighHigh Risk

Description:

Apple Mac OS X could allow a local attacker to gain elevated privileges, caused by a vulnerability in TruBlueEnvironment. By default, TruBlueEnvironment is installed setuid root. By modifying an environment variable in TruBlueEnvironment, a local attacker could exploit this vulnerability using one of the system's default cron jobs to overwrite or create files on the system with root privileges.

Platforms Affected:

  • Apple, Mac OS X 10.2
  • Apple, Mac OS X 10.2.1
  • Apple, Mac OS X 10.2.2
  • Apple, Mac OS X 10.2.3

Remedy:

Upgrade to the latest version of Mac OS X (10.2.4 or later), available from the Apple Computer, Inc. Web site. See References.

Consequences:

Gain Privileges

References:

  • @stake, Inc. Security Advisory A021403-1, TruBlueEnvironment Privilege Escalation Attack at http://www.webproxy.com/research/advisories/2003/a021403-1.txt.
  • Apple Computer, Inc. Web site, Apple - Mac OS X at http://www.apple.com/macosx/.
  • AppleCare Knowledge Base Document 61798, Apple Security Updates at http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=61798. (Mac OS X 10.2.4: Fixes CAN-2003-0088, where an attacker may change an environment variable to create arbitrary files or overwrite existing files, which could lead to obtaining elevated privileges.)
  • BID-6859: Apple MacOS Classic TruBlueEnvironment Environment Variable Privilege Escalation Vulnerability
  • CVE-2003-0088: TruBlueEnvironment for MacOS 10.2.3 and earlier allows local users to overwrite or create arbitrary files and gain root privileges by setting a certain environment variable that is used to write debugging information.

Reported:

Feb 14, 2003

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