Ars reports that a new bug has been found in GNU Bash allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code by setting the process trailing strings after function definitions in the values of environment variables.
This bug is reported to be present in RHEL (ver 4 through 7), Fedora, CentOS (ver 5 through 7), Ubuntu (ver 10.04 LTS, 12.04 LTS, and 14.04 LTS), Debian, and even OS X Mavericks.
This bug is exploitable through Apache servers with mod_cgi and mod_cgid loaded, OpenSSH, malicious DHCP servers in a compromised wireless access point through dhclient, as well as the CUPS printing system.
The Ars also includes a simple single liner that will test your setup for the newly found discovery:
env x='() { :;}; echo vulnerable' bash -c "echo this is a test"
A vulnerable system will output the following:
vulnerable
this is a test
While a patched or unaffected system outputs:
bash: warning: x: ignoring function definition attempt
bash: error importing function definition for `x'
this is a test
A patch is already out, so administrators are advised to update Bash.
Editor's Update: Security Engineer Tavis Ormandy has said "The bash patch seems incomplete to me, function parsing is still brittle".
$ env X='() { (a)=>\' sh -c "echo date"; cat echo
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 25 2014, @07:41AM
According to sshd_config(5), this is not enabled by default, and it even warns that enabling it will make it possible to bypass restricted user environments.
So, if somebody is stupid enough to enable this in a restricted user environment, even after being warned against doing so, how is this a vulnerability in bash?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 25 2014, @09:33AM
On my debian 7 and ubuntu 12.04 servers, in sshd_config:
# Allow client to pass locale environment variables
AcceptEnv LANG LC_*
That's the default install.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Thursday September 25 2014, @09:46AM
Request a tty and I think $TERM may bypass AcceptEnv