CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2017-14159

Improper Initialization

Published: Sep 05, 2017 | Modified: Jun 13, 2022
CVSS 3.x
4.7
MEDIUM
Source:
NVD
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CVSS 2.x
1.9 LOW
AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P
RedHat/V2
RedHat/V3
4.4 LOW
CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Ubuntu
LOW

slapd in OpenLDAP 2.4.45 and earlier creates a PID file after dropping privileges to a non-root account, which might allow local users to kill arbitrary processes by leveraging access to this non-root account for PID file modification before a root script executes a kill cat /pathname command, as demonstrated by openldap-initscript.

Weakness

The product does not initialize or incorrectly initializes a resource, which might leave the resource in an unexpected state when it is accessed or used.

Affected Software

Name Vendor Start Version End Version
Openldap Openldap * 2.4.45 (including)
Openldap Ubuntu artful *
Openldap Ubuntu cosmic *
Openldap Ubuntu disco *
Openldap Ubuntu eoan *
Openldap Ubuntu trusty *
Openldap Ubuntu vivid/ubuntu-core *
Openldap Ubuntu zesty *

Potential Mitigations

  • Use a language that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid.
  • For example, in Java, if the programmer does not explicitly initialize a variable, then the code could produce a compile-time error (if the variable is local) or automatically initialize the variable to the default value for the variable’s type. In Perl, if explicit initialization is not performed, then a default value of undef is assigned, which is interpreted as 0, false, or an equivalent value depending on the context in which the variable is accessed.

References