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USN-1953-1: polkit vulnerability

18 September 2013

polkit could be tricked into giving out improper authorization.

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Ubuntu Pro provides ten-year security coverage to 25,000+ packages in Main and Universe repositories, and it is free for up to five machines.

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Releases

Packages

  • policykit-1 - framework for managing administrative policies and privileges

Details

It was discovered that polkit didn't allow applications to use the pkcheck
tool in a way which prevented a race condition in the UID lookup. A local
attacker could use this flaw to possibly escalate privileges.

Reduce your security exposure

Ubuntu Pro provides ten-year security coverage to 25,000+ packages in Main and Universe repositories, and it is free for up to five machines.

Learn more about Ubuntu Pro

Update instructions

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

Ubuntu 13.04
Ubuntu 12.10
Ubuntu 12.04
Ubuntu 10.04

In general, a standard system update will make all the necessary changes.

References