Symlink Attack Affecting postgresql package, versions [,9.2.24)[9.3.0, 9.3.20)[9.4.0, 9.4.15)[9.5.0, 9.5.10)[9.6.0, 9.6.6)[10.0, 10.1)


Severity

Recommended
0.0
medium
0
10

CVSS assessment made by Snyk's Security Team. Learn more

Threat Intelligence

EPSS
0.06% (30th percentile)

Do your applications use this vulnerable package?

In a few clicks we can analyze your entire application and see what components are vulnerable in your application, and suggest you quick fixes.

Test your applications
  • Snyk IDSNYK-UNMANAGED-POSTGRESQL-2336036
  • published12 Jan 2022
  • disclosed22 Nov 2017
  • creditUnknown

Introduced: 22 Nov 2017

CVE-2017-12172  (opens in a new tab)
CWE-59  (opens in a new tab)

How to fix?

Upgrade postgresql to version 9.2.24, 9.3.20, 9.4.15, 9.5.10, 9.6.6, 10.1 or higher.

Overview

Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Symlink Attack. PostgreSQL 10.x before 10.1, 9.6.x before 9.6.6, 9.5.x before 9.5.10, 9.4.x before 9.4.15, 9.3.x before 9.3.20, and 9.2.x before 9.2.24 runs under a non-root operating system account, and database superusers have effective ability to run arbitrary code under that system account. PostgreSQL provides a script for starting the database server during system boot. Packages of PostgreSQL for many operating systems provide their own, packager-authored startup implementations. Several implementations use a log file name that the database superuser can replace with a symbolic link. As root, they open(), chmod() and/or chown() this log file name. This often suffices for the database superuser to escalate to root privileges when root starts the server.

References

CVSS Scores

version 3.1