Title: Berkeley Parallel Make Shell Definition Format String Vulnerability
Severity: HIGH
Description:
Parallel Make (pmake) is a freely available version of the make program, originally distributed with Berkeley Unix. It is designed to execute Makefiles and build programs.
A problem with pmake could make it possible for a local user to gain elevated privileges. The problem is due to a format string vulnerability in the program.
pmake is not typically setuid root, although some Linux distributions default to installing it this way. When a Makefile is executed by pmake, certain user-defined variables can be set in the Makefile by the user. One such variable is the shell definition variable, or .SHELL. By supplying a format string in the check= field of the .SHELL variable, it is possible to write to an arbitrary memory address of the program. This could result in the overwriting of the return address, and execution of arbitrary code with root privileges.
This vulnerability could lead to a local user gaining elevated privileges, including administrative access, and could result in further compromise of an affected system.
Affected Products:
- S.u.S.E. Linux 6.4.0
- S.u.S.E. Linux 6.4.0 alpha
- S.u.S.E. Linux 6.4.0 ppc
- S.u.S.E. Linux 7.0.0
- S.u.S.E. Linux 7.0.0 alpha
- S.u.S.E. Linux 7.0.0 ppc
- S.u.S.E. Linux 7.0.0 sparc
- S.u.S.E. Linux 7.1.0 alpha
- S.u.S.E. Linux 7.1.0 ppc
- S.u.S.E. Linux 7.1.0 sparc
- S.u.S.E. Linux 7.1.0 x86
- S.u.S.E. Linux 7.2.0
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