CVE-2023-3899

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Last Modified: UTC

Important Important Impact What does this mean?
7.8 CVSS v3 Base Score

Description

A vulnerability was found in subscription-manager that allows local privilege escalation due to inadequate authorization. The D-Bus interface com.redhat.RHSM1 exposes a significant number of methods to all users that could change the state of the registration. By using the com.redhat.RHSM1.Config.SetAll() method, a low-privileged local user could tamper with the state of the registration, by unregistering the system or by changing the current entitlements. This flaw allows an attacker to set arbitrary configuration directives for /etc/rhsm/rhsm.conf, which can be abused to cause a local privilege escalation to an unconfined root.

Statement

The vulnerable method SetAll() allows the non-root user to Local Privilege Escalation. The vulnerable method is present since subscription-manager-1.26.15-1. Currently, RHEL-8.2. and above contains the vulnerable code.

However, before the SetAll() was introduced, the worst thing that could happen is to unregister the system and cut off system from updates. No privilege escalation is possible in RHEL-7.9, and RHEL-8.1 as those streams ships subscription-manager-1.25.17.1-1 and prior. Making it Moderate issue for those streams.

So, the vulnerability has always been there, the SetAll() method that introduced with later version in subscription-manager turned it to a to Local Privilege Escalation.

Mitigation

A workaround is to mask rhsm.service using: 

systemctl mask rhsm.service

When the rhsm.service is masked, then no D-Bus call cannot trigger the service and all D-Bus calls will be terminated with error: "Call failed: Could not activate remote peer." But then all applications using D-Bus API will not work until you unmask the service using: "systemctl unmask rhsm.service"

Additional Information

External References

Content from www.cve.org is not included.https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-3899

Content from nvd.nist.gov is not included.https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-3899

Affected Packages and Issued Red Hat Security Errata

Products / Services Components State Errata
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 subscription-manager Not affected
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 subscription-manager Fixed RHSA-2023:4701
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 subscription-manager Fixed RHSA-2023:4706
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1 Update Services for SAP Solutions subscription-manager Fixed RHSA-2023:4702
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.2 Advanced Update Support subscription-manager Fixed RHSA-2023:4703
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.2 Telecommunications Update Service subscription-manager Fixed RHSA-2023:4703
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.2 Update Services for SAP Solutions subscription-manager Fixed RHSA-2023:4703
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 Advanced Mission Critical Update Support subscription-manager Fixed RHSA-2023:4704
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 Telecommunications Update Service subscription-manager Fixed RHSA-2023:4704
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 Update Services for SAP Solutions subscription-manager Fixed RHSA-2023:4704
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 Score Breakdown Red Hat NVD
CVSS v3 Base Score 7.8 7.8
Attack Vector Local Local
Attack Complexity Low Low
Privileges Required Low Low
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:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

NVD CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Acknowledgements

This issue was discovered by Thibault Guittet (Senior Product Security Engineer, Red Hat).

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.