FreeBSD VuXML: Documenting security issues in FreeBSD and the FreeBSD Ports Collection

kde-workspace -- privilege escalation

Affected packages
kde-workspace < 4.11.13_1

Details

VuXML ID dafa13a8-6e9b-11e4-8ef7-5453ed2e2b49
Discovery 2014-11-06
Entry 2014-11-17

David Edmundson reports:

KDE workspace configuration module for setting the date and time has a helper program which runs as root for performing actions. This is secured with polkit.

This helper takes the name of the ntp utility to run as an argument. This allows a hacker to run any arbitrary command as root under the guise of updating the time.

An application can gain root priveledges from an admin user with either misleading information or no interaction.

On some systems the user will be shown a prompt to change the time. However, if the system has policykit-desktop-privileges installed, the datetime helper will be invoked by an admin user without any prompts.

References

CVE Name CVE-2014-8651
Message http://seclists.org/oss-sec/2014/q4/520