CVE-2024-48991

Publication date 19 November 2024

Last updated 26 November 2024

Ubuntu priority

Cvss 3 Severity Score

Qualys discovered that needrestart, before version 3.8, allows local attackers to execute arbitrary code as root by winning a race condition and tricking needrestart into running their own, fake Python interpreter (instead of the system's real Python interpreter).

Read the notes from the security team

Why is this CVE high priority?

Local privilege escalation

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Mitigation

Edit /etc/needrestart/needrestart.conf so that the following line appears after "# Disable interpreter scanners." and reboot: $nrconf{interpscan} = 0;

Status

Show unmaintained releases

Package	Ubuntu Release	Status
needrestart	24.10 oracular	Fixed 3.6-8ubuntu4.2
	24.04 LTS noble	Fixed 3.6-7ubuntu4.3
	22.04 LTS jammy	Fixed 3.5-5ubuntu2.2
	20.04 LTS focal	Fixed 3.4-6ubuntu0.1+esm1 Ubuntu Pro
	18.04 LTS bionic	Fixed 3.1-1ubuntu0.1+esm1 Ubuntu Pro
	16.04 LTS xenial	Fixed 2.6-1ubuntu0.1~esm1 Ubuntu Pro

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Notes

eslerm

The security fix 6ce6136 ("core: prevent race condition on /proc/$PID/exec evaluation") introduces regressions. See upstream issue #317. As of 2024-11-21, no regression fix exists.

sudhackar

See USN-7117-2 for the regression fix.

Patch details

For informational purposes only. We recommend not to cherry-pick updates. How can I get the fixes?

Package	Patch details
needrestart	Upstream: 6ce6136

Severity score breakdown

Parameter	Value
Base score	7.8 · High
Attack vector	Local
Attack complexity	Low
Privileges required	Low
User interaction	None
Scope	Unchanged
Confidentiality	High
Integrity impact	High
Availability impact	High
Vector	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

References

Related Ubuntu Security Notices (USN)

USN-7117-1
needrestart and Module::ScanDeps vulnerabilities
19 November 2024