CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2009-3612

Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor

Published: Oct 19, 2009 | Modified: Nov 07, 2023
CVSS 3.x
N/A
Source:
NVD
CVSS 2.x
2.1 LOW
AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N
RedHat/V2
2.1 MODERATE
AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N
RedHat/V3
Ubuntu
LOW

The tcf_fill_node function in net/sched/cls_api.c in the netlink subsystem in the Linux kernel 2.6.x before 2.6.32-rc5, and 2.4.37.6 and earlier, does not initialize a certain tcm__pad2 structure member, which might allow local users to obtain sensitive information from kernel memory via unspecified vectors. NOTE: this issue exists because of an incomplete fix for CVE-2005-4881.

Weakness

The product exposes sensitive information to an actor that is not explicitly authorized to have access to that information.

Affected Software

Name Vendor Start Version End Version
Linux_kernel Linux * 2.4.37.6 (including)
Linux_kernel Linux 2.6.0 (including) 2.6.32 (excluding)
Linux_kernel Linux 2.6.32 (including) 2.6.32 (including)
Linux_kernel Linux 2.6.32-rc1 (including) 2.6.32-rc1 (including)
Linux_kernel Linux 2.6.32-rc2 (including) 2.6.32-rc2 (including)
Linux_kernel Linux 2.6.32-rc3 (including) 2.6.32-rc3 (including)
Linux_kernel Linux 2.6.32-rc4 (including) 2.6.32-rc4 (including)
MRG for RHEL-5 RedHat kernel-rt-0:2.6.24.7-137.el5rt *
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 RedHat kernel-0:2.6.9-89.0.15.EL *
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 RedHat kernel-0:2.6.18-164.9.1.el5 *
Linux Ubuntu hardy *
Linux Ubuntu intrepid *
Linux Ubuntu jaunty *
Linux Ubuntu karmic *
Linux Ubuntu upstream *
Linux-source-2.6.15 Ubuntu dapper *
Linux-source-2.6.15 Ubuntu upstream *

Extended Description

There are many different kinds of mistakes that introduce information exposures. The severity of the error can range widely, depending on the context in which the product operates, the type of sensitive information that is revealed, and the benefits it may provide to an attacker. Some kinds of sensitive information include:

Information might be sensitive to different parties, each of which may have their own expectations for whether the information should be protected. These parties include:

Information exposures can occur in different ways:

It is common practice to describe any loss of confidentiality as an “information exposure,” but this can lead to overuse of CWE-200 in CWE mapping. From the CWE perspective, loss of confidentiality is a technical impact that can arise from dozens of different weaknesses, such as insecure file permissions or out-of-bounds read. CWE-200 and its lower-level descendants are intended to cover the mistakes that occur in behaviors that explicitly manage, store, transfer, or cleanse sensitive information.

Potential Mitigations

  • Compartmentalize the system to have “safe” areas where trust boundaries can be unambiguously drawn. Do not allow sensitive data to go outside of the trust boundary and always be careful when interfacing with a compartment outside of the safe area.
  • Ensure that appropriate compartmentalization is built into the system design, and the compartmentalization allows for and reinforces privilege separation functionality. Architects and designers should rely on the principle of least privilege to decide the appropriate time to use privileges and the time to drop privileges.

References