USN-1223-1: Puppet vulnerabilities
30 September 2011
Puppet could be made to overwrite files and run programs with administrator privileges.
Releases
Packages
- puppet - Centralized configuration management
Details
It was discovered that Puppet unsafely opened files when the k5login type
is used to manage files. A local attacker could exploit this to overwrite
arbitrary files which could be used to escalate privileges. (CVE-2011-3869)
Ricky Zhou discovered that Puppet did not drop privileges when creating
SSH authorized_keys files. A local attacker could exploit this to overwrite
arbitrary files as root. (CVE-2011-3870)
It was discovered that Puppet used a predictable filename when using the
--edit resource. A local attacker could exploit this to edit arbitrary
files or run arbitrary code as the user invoking the program, typically
root. (CVE-2011-3871)
Update instructions
The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following package versions:
Ubuntu 11.04
Ubuntu 10.10
Ubuntu 10.04
In general, a standard system update will make all the necessary changes.