CVE-2016-6662

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Last Modified: UTC

Important Important Impact What does this mean?
9.8 CVSS v3 Base Score
7.1 CVSS v2 Base Score

Description

It was discovered that the MySQL logging functionality allowed writing to MySQL configuration files. An administrative database user, or a database user with FILE privileges, could possibly use this flaw to run arbitrary commands with root privileges on the system running the database server.

Statement

All MySQL and MariaDB packages in Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat Software Collections install the my.cnf configuration file in /etc as root-owned and not writeable to mysqld's mysql user. This default configuration stops the published exploit for this issue.

All MySQL and MariaDB packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (either those directly included in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 or from Red Hat Software Collections for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7) run mysqld_safe with mysql user privileges and not root privileges, limiting the potential impact to code execution as mysql system user.

The MySQL 5.1 packages in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 do not implement support for library preloading, completely preventing the remote attack vector used by the published exploit.

For additional details, refer to:

This content is not included.https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1375198#c12

Mitigation

- Ensure all MySQL / MariaDB configuration files are not writeable to the mysql user. This is the default configuration in Red Hat products.

- Ensure that non-administrative database users are not granted FILE privilege. Applications accessing data in MySQL / MariaDB databases, including web application potentially vulnerable to SQL injections, should use database accounts with the lowest privileges required.

- If FILE permission needs to be granted to some non-administrative database users, use secure_file_priv setting to limit where files can be written to or read from.

Additional Information

External References

Content from www.cve.org is not included.https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2016-6662

Content from nvd.nist.gov is not included.https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2016-6662

Content from legalhackers.com is not included.https://legalhackers.com/advisories/MySQL-Exploit-Remote-Root-Code-Execution-Privesc-CVE-2016-6662.txt

Affected Packages and Issued Red Hat Security Errata

Products / Services Components State Errata
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 mysql Not affected
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 mysql55-mysql Will not fix
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 mysql Fixed RHSA-2017:0184
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 mariadb Fixed RHSA-2016:2595
Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform 5.0 (Icehouse) for RHEL 6 mariadb-galera Fixed RHSA-2016:2058
Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform 5.0 (Icehouse) for RHEL 7 mariadb-galera Fixed RHSA-2016:2059
Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform 6.0 (Juno) for RHEL 7 mariadb-galera Fixed RHSA-2016:2060
Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform 7.0 (Kilo) for RHEL 7 mariadb-galera Fixed RHSA-2016:2061
Red Hat Mobile Application Platform 4 millicore Not affected
Red Hat OpenStack Platform 10 (Newton) mariadb-galera Not affected
Unless explicitly stated as not affected, all previous versions of packages in any minor update stream of a product listed here should be assumed vulnerable, although may not have been subject to full analysis.

Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details

Important note

CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authorities (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications ).

CVSS v3
CVSS v3 Score Breakdown Red Hat NVD
CVSS v3 Base Score 9.8 9.8
Attack Vector Network Network
Attack Complexity Low Low
Privileges Required None None
User Interaction None None
Scope Unchanged Unchanged
Confidentiality Impact High High
Integrity Impact High High
Availability Impact High High

CVSS v3 Vector

Red Hat CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

NVD CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

CVSS v2
CVSS v2 Score Breakdown Red Hat NVD
CVSS v2 Base Score 7.1 10
Attack Vector Network Network
Access Complexity High Low
Authentication Single None
Confidentiality Impact Complete Complete
Integrity Impact Complete Complete
Availability Impact Complete Complete

CVSS v2 Vector

Red Hat AV:N/AC:H/Au:S/C:C/I:C/A:C

NVD AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is Red Hat's CVSS v3 score or Impact different from other vendors?

 For open source software shipped by multiple vendors, the CVSS base scores may vary for each vendor's version depending on the version they ship, how they ship it, the platform, and even how the software is compiled. This makes scoring of vulnerabilities difficult for third-party vulnerability databases such as NVD that only provide a single CVSS base score for each vulnerability. Red Hat scores reflect how a vulnerability affects our products specifically.

For more information, see https://access.redhat.com/solutions/762393.

My product is listed as "Under investigation" or "Affected", when will Red Hat release a fix for this vulnerability?
  • "Under investigation" doesn't necessarily mean that the product is affected by this vulnerability. It only means that our Analysis Team is still working on determining whether the product is affected and how it is affected.
  • "Affected" means that our Analysis Team has determined that this product is affected by this vulnerability and might release a fix to address this in the near future.

What can I do if my product is listed as "Will not fix"?

 A "will not fix" status means that a fix for an affected product version is not planned or not possible due to complexity, which may create additional risk.

Available options depend mostly on the Impact of the vulnerability and the current Life Cycle phase of your product. Overall, you have the following options:
  • Upgrade to a supported product version that includes a fix for this vulnerability (recommended).
  • Apply a mitigation (if one exists).
  • Open a This content is not included.support case to request a prioritization of releasing a fix for this vulnerability.

What can I do if my product is listed as "Fix deferred"?

 A deferred status means that a fix for an affected product version is not guaranteed due to higher-priority development work.

Available options depend mostly on the Impact of the vulnerability and the current Life Cycle phase of your product. Overall, you have the following options:
  • Apply a mitigation (if one exists).
  • Open a This content is not included.support case to request a prioritization of releasing a fix for this vulnerability.
  • Red Hat Engineering focuses on addressing high-priority issues based on their complexity or limited lifecycle support. Therefore, lower-priority issues will not receive immediate fixes.

What is a mitigation?

 A mitigation is an action that can be taken to reduce the impact of a security vulnerability, without deploying any fixes.

I have a Red Hat product but it is not in the above list, is it affected?

 The listed products were found to include one or more of the components that this vulnerability affects. These products underwent a thorough evaluation to determine their affectedness by this vulnerability. Note that layered products (such as container-based offerings) that consume affected components from any of the products listed in this table may be affected and are not represented.

Why is my security scanner reporting my product as vulnerable to this vulnerability even though my product version is fixed or not affected?

 In order to maintain code stability and compatibility, Red Hat usually does not rebase packages to entirely new versions. Instead, we backport fixes and new features to an older version of the package we distribute. This can result in some security scanners that only consider the package version to report the package as vulnerable. To avoid this, we suggest that you use an approved vulnerability scanner from our This content is not included.Red Hat Vulnerability Scanner Certification program.