CVE-2014-0249 in Red Hat
Summary
by MITRE
The System Security Services Daemon (SSSD) 1.11.6 does not properly identify group membership when a non-POSIX group is in a group membership chain, which allows local users to bypass access restrictions via unspecified vectors.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 12/22/2024
The CVE-2014-0249 vulnerability resides within the System Security Services Daemon SSSD version 1.11.6, a critical component in enterprise security infrastructure responsible for managing user authentication and authorization across distributed systems. This daemon serves as a bridge between local system security mechanisms and remote identity management services such as Active Directory, LDAP, and Kerberos. The flaw manifests in the daemon's inability to correctly process group membership chains when non-POSIX groups are involved, creating a fundamental weakness in access control enforcement that directly impacts the security posture of systems relying on SSSD for authentication services.
The technical root cause of this vulnerability stems from improper handling of group membership resolution within SSSD's internal processing logic. When SSSD encounters a group membership chain containing non-POSIX groups, the daemon fails to properly validate or recognize the hierarchical relationships between groups, leading to incorrect access control decisions. This issue specifically affects the group membership evaluation process where SSSD should traverse group membership chains to determine user permissions but instead processes these chains incorrectly, potentially allowing unauthorized access to restricted resources. The vulnerability operates at the authentication and authorization level, making it particularly dangerous as it can be exploited to bypass security controls that rely on proper group membership validation. According to CWE classification, this represents a weakness in the authorization mechanism, specifically CWE-284 Access Control, where insufficient group membership verification leads to privilege escalation opportunities.
The operational impact of CVE-2014-0249 extends beyond simple access control bypasses, as it fundamentally undermines the trust model that SSSD establishes between local systems and remote identity providers. Local users who can exploit this vulnerability can gain unauthorized access to resources that should be restricted to specific group memberships, potentially leading to data breaches, privilege escalation, and unauthorized system modifications. The unspecified vectors mentioned in the description suggest that the exploitation could occur through various means including local login attempts, service account access, or through compromised user sessions that leverage the flawed group membership resolution. This vulnerability is particularly concerning in enterprise environments where SSSD is commonly deployed to manage access control across multiple systems and services, as a successful exploitation could allow attackers to move laterally within the network or gain access to sensitive administrative resources.
Organizations implementing mitigation strategies for this vulnerability should prioritize immediate patching of SSSD to versions that address the group membership resolution flaw, typically found in SSSD 1.11.7 and subsequent releases. System administrators should also implement additional monitoring for anomalous authentication patterns and group membership changes that could indicate exploitation attempts. The vulnerability aligns with ATT&CK technique T1078 Valid Accounts, as it allows attackers to leverage legitimate user accounts to gain unauthorized access through flawed authorization controls. Security teams should conduct comprehensive audits of group membership configurations and access control policies to identify potential misconfigurations that could be exploited in conjunction with this vulnerability. Additionally, implementing network segmentation and least privilege access controls can help limit the potential impact of successful exploitation attempts, while regular security assessments should verify that group membership resolution functions properly across all systems utilizing SSSD services.