A Security Vulnerability in the Solaris crontab(1) utility may allow execution of Arbitrary Code

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A Security Vulnerability in the Solaris crontab(1) utility may allow execution of Arbitrary Code

1. Impact

A race condition security vulnerability in the Solaris crontab(1) utility may allow a local unprivileged user to inject arbitrary cron(1M) jobs into another local user's crontab file, leading to execution of arbitrary code with the privileges of that user. This condition may also be exploited to inject arbitrary entries into the root user's crontab file under certain circumstances, thereby allowing the local unprivileged user to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the root user.

Sun acknowledges with thanks, Charles Morris of Old Dominion University for discovering and reporting this issue.

2. Contributing Factors

This issue can occur in the following releases:

SPARC Platform

• Solaris 8 without patch 109007-26
• Solaris 9 without patch 122300-27
• Solaris 10 without patch 137017-02
• OpenSolaris based upon builds snv_01 through snv_91
  

x86 Platform

• Solaris 8 without patch 109008-26
• Solaris 9 without patch 122301-27
• Solaris 10 without patch 137018-02
• OpenSolaris based upon builds snv_01 through snv_91

Only OpenSolaris installations including the following affected binaries are impacted by this issue:


OpenSolaris distributions may include additional bug fixes above and beyond the base build from which it was derived. The base build can be derived as follows:

$ uname -a
SunOS  phys-node-1 5.11 snv_86 i86pc i386 i86pc

3. Symptoms

There are no predictable symptoms that would indicate the described issue has been exploited to execute arbitrary code.

4. Workaround

There is no workaround for this issue. Please see the Resolution section below.

5. Resolution

SPARC Platform

• Solaris 8 with patch 109007-26 or later
• Solaris 9 with patch 122300-27 or later
• Solaris 10 with patch 137017-02 or later
• OpenSolaris based upon builds snv_92 or later
  

x86 Platform

• Solaris 8 with patch 109008-26 or later
• Solaris 9 with patch 122301-27 or later
• Solaris 10 with patch 137018-02 or later
• OpenSolaris based upon builds snv_92 or later

For more information on Security Sun Alerts, see Technical Instruction ID 213557.

This Sun Alert notification is being provided to you on an "AS IS" basis. This Sun Alert notification may contain information provided by third parties. The issues described in this Sun Alert notification may or may not impact your system(s). Sun makes no representations, warranties, or guarantees as to the information contained herein. ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT, ARE HEREBY DISCLAIMED. BY ACCESSING THIS DOCUMENT YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT SUN SHALL IN NO EVENT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, PUNITIVE, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES THAT ARISE OUT OF YOUR USE OR FAILURE TO USE THE INFORMATION CONTAINED HEREIN. This Sun Alert notification contains Sun proprietary and confidential information. It is being provided to you pursuant to the provisions of your agreement to purchase services from Sun, or, if you do not have such an agreement, the Sun.com Terms of Use. This Sun Alert notification may only be used for the purposes contemplated by these agreements.

Copyright 2000-2008 Sun Microsystems, Inc., 4150 Network Circle, Santa Clara, CA 95054 U.S.A. All rights reserved.

Modification History

07-Aug-2008: Updated Impact section for clarification

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