#VU31918 Improper Initialization - CVE-2017-14159

Vulnerability identifier: #VU31918

Vulnerability risk: Medium

CVSSv4.0: 2.3 [CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:U/U:Green]

CVE-ID: CVE-2017-14159

CWE-ID: CWE-665

Exploitation vector: Network

Exploit availability: No

Description

The vulnerability allows a local authenticated user to perform a denial of service (DoS) attack.

slapd in OpenLDAP 2.4.45 and earlier creates a PID file after dropping privileges to a non-root account, which might allow local users to kill arbitrary processes by leveraging access to this non-root account for PID file modification before a root script executes a "kill `cat /pathname`" command, as demonstrated by openldap-initscript.

Mitigation
Install update from vendor's website.

External links
https://www.openldap.org/its/index.cgi?findid=8703

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Q & A

Can this vulnerability be exploited remotely?

Yes. This vulnerability can be exploited by a remote authenticated user via the Internet.

Is there known malware, which exploits this vulnerability?

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