Privilege escalation in GNU Nano

1) UNIX symbolic link following

EUVDB-ID: #VU93285

Risk: Low

CVSSv3.1: 6.2 [CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N/E:U/RL:O/RC:C]

CVE-ID: CVE-2024-5742

CWE-ID: CWE-61 - UNIX Symbolic Link (Symlink) Following

Exploit availability: No

Description

The vulnerability allows a local user to escalate privileges on the system.

The vulnerability exists due to a symlink following issue. A local user can create a specially crafted symbolic link to a critical file on the system and overwrite it with privileges of the application.

Successful exploitation of this vulnerability may result in privilege escalation.

Mitigation

Install updates from vendor's website.

Vulnerable software versions

nano: 0.1.0 - 7.2

External links

http://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2024-5742
http://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2278574
http://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2024/06/msg00006.html
http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/nano.git/commit/?id=5e7a3c2e7e118c7f12d5dfda9f9140f638976aa2

Q & A

Can this vulnerability be exploited remotely?

No. This vulnerability can be exploited locally. The attacker should have authentication credentials and successfully authenticate on the system.

Is there known malware, which exploits this vulnerability?

No. We are not aware of malware exploiting this vulnerability.