ubuntu-cve-2018-7169
Vulnerability from osv_ubuntu
Published
2018-02-15 20:29
Modified
2025-09-08 16:44
Summary
Details

An issue was discovered in shadow 4.5. newgidmap (in shadow-utils) is setuid and allows an unprivileged user to be placed in a user namespace where setgroups(2) is permitted. This allows an attacker to remove themselves from a supplementary group, which may allow access to certain filesystem paths if the administrator has used "group blacklisting" (e.g., chmod g-rwx) to restrict access to paths. This flaw effectively reverts a security feature in the kernel (in particular, the /proc/self/setgroups knob) to prevent this sort of privilege escalation.

Severity
5.3 (Medium)
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N
N/A (UNKNOWN)
low
References
To clipboard 

{
  "affected": [
    {
      "ecosystem_specific": {
        "availability": "Available with Ubuntu Pro (Infra-only): https://ubuntu.com/pro",
        "binaries": [
          {
            "binary_name": "login",
            "binary_version": "1:4.1.5.1-1ubuntu9.5+esm1"
          },
          {
            "binary_name": "passwd",
            "binary_version": "1:4.1.5.1-1ubuntu9.5+esm1"
          },
          {
            "binary_name": "uidmap",
            "binary_version": "1:4.1.5.1-1ubuntu9.5+esm1"
          }
        ]
      },
      "package": {
        "ecosystem": "Ubuntu:Pro:14.04:LTS",
        "name": "shadow",
        "purl": "pkg:deb/ubuntu/shadow@1:4.1.5.1-1ubuntu9.5+esm1?arch=source\u0026distro=trusty/esm"
      },
      "ranges": [
        {
          "events": [
            {
              "introduced": "0"
            },
            {
              "fixed": "1:4.1.5.1-1ubuntu9.5+esm1"
            }
          ],
          "type": "ECOSYSTEM"
        }
      ],
      "versions": [
        "1:4.1.5.1-1ubuntu6",
        "1:4.1.5.1-1ubuntu7",
        "1:4.1.5.1-1ubuntu8",
        "1:4.1.5.1-1ubuntu9",
        "1:4.1.5.1-1ubuntu9.1",
        "1:4.1.5.1-1ubuntu9.2",
        "1:4.1.5.1-1ubuntu9.4",
        "1:4.1.5.1-1ubuntu9.5"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ecosystem_specific": {
        "availability": "Available with Ubuntu Pro (Infra-only): https://ubuntu.com/pro",
        "binaries": [
          {
            "binary_name": "login",
            "binary_version": "1:4.2-3.1ubuntu5.5+esm1"
          },
          {
            "binary_name": "passwd",
            "binary_version": "1:4.2-3.1ubuntu5.5+esm1"
          },
          {
            "binary_name": "uidmap",
            "binary_version": "1:4.2-3.1ubuntu5.5+esm1"
          }
        ]
      },
      "package": {
        "ecosystem": "Ubuntu:Pro:16.04:LTS",
        "name": "shadow",
        "purl": "pkg:deb/ubuntu/shadow@1:4.2-3.1ubuntu5.5+esm1?arch=source\u0026distro=esm-infra/xenial"
      },
      "ranges": [
        {
          "events": [
            {
              "introduced": "0"
            },
            {
              "fixed": "1:4.2-3.1ubuntu5.5+esm1"
            }
          ],
          "type": "ECOSYSTEM"
        }
      ],
      "versions": [
        "1:4.1.5.1-1.1ubuntu7",
        "1:4.2-3.1ubuntu1",
        "1:4.2-3.1ubuntu2",
        "1:4.2-3.1ubuntu3",
        "1:4.2-3.1ubuntu4",
        "1:4.2-3.1ubuntu5",
        "1:4.2-3.1ubuntu5.2",
        "1:4.2-3.1ubuntu5.3",
        "1:4.2-3.1ubuntu5.4"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ecosystem_specific": {
        "availability": "No subscription required",
        "binaries": [
          {
            "binary_name": "login",
            "binary_version": "1:4.5-1ubuntu2.2"
          },
          {
            "binary_name": "passwd",
            "binary_version": "1:4.5-1ubuntu2.2"
          },
          {
            "binary_name": "uidmap",
            "binary_version": "1:4.5-1ubuntu2.2"
          }
        ]
      },
      "package": {
        "ecosystem": "Ubuntu:18.04:LTS",
        "name": "shadow",
        "purl": "pkg:deb/ubuntu/shadow@1:4.5-1ubuntu2.2?arch=source\u0026distro=bionic"
      },
      "ranges": [
        {
          "events": [
            {
              "introduced": "0"
            },
            {
              "fixed": "1:4.5-1ubuntu2.2"
            }
          ],
          "type": "ECOSYSTEM"
        }
      ],
      "versions": [
        "1:4.2-3.2ubuntu4",
        "1:4.5-1ubuntu1",
        "1:4.5-1ubuntu2"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "aliases": [],
  "details": "An issue was discovered in shadow 4.5. newgidmap (in shadow-utils) is setuid and allows an unprivileged user to be placed in a user namespace where setgroups(2) is permitted. This allows an attacker to remove themselves from a supplementary group, which may allow access to certain filesystem paths if the administrator has used \"group blacklisting\" (e.g., chmod g-rwx) to restrict access to paths. This flaw effectively reverts a security feature in the kernel (in particular, the /proc/self/setgroups knob) to prevent this sort of privilege escalation.",
  "id": "UBUNTU-CVE-2018-7169",
  "modified": "2025-09-08T16:44:47Z",
  "published": "2018-02-15T20:29:00Z",
  "references": [
    {
      "type": "REPORT",
      "url": "https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2018-7169"
    },
    {
      "type": "REPORT",
      "url": "https://github.com/shadow-maint/shadow/pull/97"
    },
    {
      "type": "ADVISORY",
      "url": "https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-5254-1"
    },
    {
      "type": "REPORT",
      "url": "https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2018-7169"
    }
  ],
  "related": [
    "USN-5254-1"
  ],
  "schema_version": "1.7.0",
  "severity": [
    {
      "score": "CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N",
      "type": "CVSS_V3"
    },
    {
      "score": "low",
      "type": "Ubuntu"
    }
  ],
  "upstream": [
    "CVE-2018-7169"
  ]
}



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