A vulnerability in cryptsetup, a utility used to set up encrypted filesystems on Linux distributions, could allow an attacker to retrieve a root rescue shell on some systems. From there, an attacker could have the ability to copy, modify, or destroy a hard disk, or use the network to exfiltrate data. Cryptsetup, a utility used to setup disk encryption based on the dm-crypt kernel module, is usually deployed in Debian and Ubuntu. Researchers warned late last week that if anyone uses the tool to encrypt system partitions for the operating systems, they’re likely vulnerable.
Two researchers, Hector Marco of the University of the West of Scotland and Ismael Ripoll, of the Polytechnic University of Valencia, in Spain, disclosed the vulnerability on Friday at DeepSec, a security conference held at the Imperial Riding School Renaissance Vienna Hotel in Austria. The problem stems from the incorrect handling of a password check when a partition is ciphered with LUKS, or Linux Unified Key Setup, a disk encryption specification that’s standard for Linux.
Source: https://threatpost.com/cryptsetup-vulnerability-grants-root-shell-access-on-some-linux-systems/121963/
Submitted by: Arnfried Walbrecht
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