Ubuntu Security Notice USN-828-1
8th September, 2009
pam vulnerability
A security issue affects these releases of Ubuntu and its derivatives:
- Ubuntu 9.04
- Ubuntu 8.10
Software description
- 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 version:
- Ubuntu 9.04:
- libpam-runtime 1.0.1-9ubuntu1.1
- Ubuntu 8.10:
- libpam-runtime 1.0.1-4ubuntu5.6
To update your system, please follow these instructions: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Security/Upgrades.
In general, a standard system upgrade is sufficient to effect the
necessary changes.