CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2018-11508

Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor

Published: May 28, 2018 | Modified: Mar 27, 2019
CVSS 3.x
5.5
MEDIUM
Source:
NVD
CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
CVSS 2.x
2.1 LOW
AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N
RedHat/V2
RedHat/V3
3.3 LOW
CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N
Ubuntu
LOW

The compat_get_timex function in kernel/compat.c in the Linux kernel before 4.16.9 allows local users to obtain sensitive information from kernel memory via adjtimex.

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 * 4.16.9 (excluding)
Linux Ubuntu artful *
Linux Ubuntu bionic *
Linux Ubuntu upstream *
Linux-aws Ubuntu bionic *
Linux-aws Ubuntu upstream *
Linux-azure Ubuntu bionic *
Linux-azure Ubuntu upstream *
Linux-azure Ubuntu xenial *
Linux-azure-edge Ubuntu upstream *
Linux-azure-edge Ubuntu xenial *
Linux-euclid Ubuntu upstream *
Linux-flo Ubuntu esm-apps/xenial *
Linux-flo Ubuntu trusty *
Linux-flo Ubuntu upstream *
Linux-flo Ubuntu xenial *
Linux-gcp Ubuntu bionic *
Linux-gcp Ubuntu upstream *
Linux-gcp Ubuntu xenial *
Linux-gke Ubuntu upstream *
Linux-gke Ubuntu xenial *
Linux-goldfish Ubuntu esm-apps/xenial *
Linux-goldfish Ubuntu trusty *
Linux-goldfish Ubuntu upstream *
Linux-goldfish Ubuntu xenial *
Linux-grouper Ubuntu trusty *
Linux-grouper Ubuntu upstream *
Linux-hwe Ubuntu upstream *
Linux-hwe Ubuntu xenial *
Linux-hwe-edge Ubuntu upstream *
Linux-hwe-edge Ubuntu xenial *
Linux-kvm Ubuntu bionic *
Linux-kvm Ubuntu upstream *
Linux-lts-trusty Ubuntu upstream *
Linux-lts-utopic Ubuntu trusty *
Linux-lts-utopic Ubuntu upstream *
Linux-lts-vivid Ubuntu trusty *
Linux-lts-vivid Ubuntu upstream *
Linux-lts-wily Ubuntu trusty *
Linux-lts-wily Ubuntu upstream *
Linux-lts-xenial Ubuntu upstream *
Linux-maguro Ubuntu trusty *
Linux-maguro Ubuntu upstream *
Linux-mako Ubuntu esm-apps/xenial *
Linux-mako Ubuntu trusty *
Linux-mako Ubuntu upstream *
Linux-mako Ubuntu xenial *
Linux-manta Ubuntu trusty *
Linux-manta Ubuntu upstream *
Linux-oem Ubuntu bionic *
Linux-oem Ubuntu upstream *
Linux-oem Ubuntu xenial *
Linux-raspi2 Ubuntu artful *
Linux-raspi2 Ubuntu bionic *
Linux-raspi2 Ubuntu upstream *
Linux-snapdragon 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