USN-828-1: PAM vulnerability

Releases

• Ubuntu 9.04
• Ubuntu 8.10

Packages

• pam -

Details

Russell Senior discovered that the system authentication module
selection mechanism for PAM did not safely handle an empty selection.
If an administrator had specifically removed the default list of modules
or failed to chose a module when operating debconf in a very unlikely
non-default configuration, PAM would allow any authentication attempt,
which could lead to remote attackers gaining access to a system with
arbitrary privileges. This did not affect default Ubuntu installations.

Update instructions

The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following package versions:

Ubuntu 9.04

• libpam-runtime - 1.0.1-9ubuntu1.1

Ubuntu 8.10

• libpam-runtime - 1.0.1-4ubuntu5.6

In general, a standard system upgrade is sufficient to effect the
necessary changes.

References

• CVE-2009-3232