Details
Ilja van Sprundel discovered that passwd, when called with the -f, -g,
or -s option, did not check the result of the setuid() call. On
systems that configure PAM limits for the maximum number of user
processes, a local attacker could exploit this to execute chfn,
gpasswd, or chsh with root privileges.
This does not affect the default configuration of Ubuntu.
Ilja van Sprundel discovered that passwd, when called with the -f, -g,
or -s option, did not check the result of the setuid() call. On
systems that configure PAM limits for the maximum number of user
processes, a local attacker could exploit this to execute chfn,
gpasswd, or chsh with root privileges.
This does not affect the default configuration of Ubuntu.
Update instructions
In general, a standard system upgrade is sufficient to effect the necessary changes.
Learn more about how to get the fixes.The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following package versions:
| Ubuntu Release | Package Version | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 6.06 dapper | passwd – 1:4.0.13-7ubuntu3.1 | ||
| 5.10 breezy | passwd – 1:4.0.3-37ubuntu10 | ||
| 5.04 hoary | passwd – 1:4.0.3-30.7ubuntu16.1 | ||
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