1. Ubuntu Security Notices
  2. USN-290-1

USN-290-1: awstats vulnerability

Publication date

8 June 2006

Overview

awstats vulnerability

Releases

Details

Hendrik Weimer discovered a privilege escalation vulnerability in
awstats. By supplying the ‘configdir’ CGI parameter and setting it to
an attacker-controlled directory (such as an FTP account, /tmp, or
similar), an attacker could execute arbitrary shell commands with the
privileges of the web server (user ‘www-data’).

This update disables the ‘configdir’ parameter by default. If all
local user accounts can be trusted, it can be reenabled by running
awstats with the AWSTATS_ENABLE_CONFIG_DIR environment variable set to
a nonempty value.

Hendrik Weimer discovered a privilege escalation vulnerability in
awstats. By supplying the ‘configdir’ CGI parameter and setting it to
an attacker-controlled directory (such as an FTP account, /tmp, or
similar), an attacker could execute arbitrary shell commands with the
privileges of the web server (user ‘www-data’).

This update disables the ‘configdir’ parameter by default. If all
local user accounts can be trusted, it can be reenabled by running
awstats with the AWSTATS_ENABLE_CONFIG_DIR environment variable set to
a nonempty value.

Update instructions

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

Learn more about how to get the fixes.

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

Ubuntu Release Package Version
6.06 dapper awstats –  6.5-1ubuntu1.1
5.10 breezy awstats –  6.4-1ubuntu1.2
5.04 hoary awstats –  6.3-1ubuntu0.3

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References

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