CVE-2017-9232 in Juju
Summary
by MITRE
Juju before 1.25.12, 2.0.x before 2.0.4, and 2.1.x before 2.1.3 uses a UNIX domain socket without setting appropriate permissions, allowing privilege escalation by users on the system to root.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 12/26/2024
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2017-9232 affects the Juju cloud orchestration platform, which is designed to manage and deploy applications across various cloud environments. This issue exists in multiple versions of Juju including 1.25.12 and below, 2.0.x versions prior to 2.0.4, and 2.1.x versions before 2.1.3. The core problem lies in how Juju handles UNIX domain socket permissions during its operation, creating a significant security weakness that can be exploited by local users to escalate their privileges to root level access.
The technical flaw stems from Juju's failure to properly configure permissions on UNIX domain sockets it creates during runtime. These sockets are typically used for inter-process communication between different components of the Juju system, including communication between the Juju client and the Juju controller. When appropriate permissions are not set on these sockets, any user on the system can potentially connect to them and manipulate the communication channels. This misconfiguration allows an attacker with local access to the system to leverage the Juju process to gain elevated privileges, ultimately achieving root access. The vulnerability represents a classic case of insufficient privilege separation and improper access control implementation.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is severe as it transforms any local user account into a potential vector for privilege escalation attacks. In environments where Juju is installed and running with elevated privileges, an attacker can exploit this weakness to bypass normal user restrictions and gain complete system control. This is particularly dangerous in multi-user environments or systems where Juju is used to manage critical infrastructure components. The vulnerability essentially provides a backdoor mechanism that allows privilege escalation without requiring any special authentication credentials or network access. Attackers can exploit this through local system access, making it difficult to detect and mitigate compared to network-based attacks.
The vulnerability aligns with CWE-732, which describes inadequate permissions on critical resources, and can be mapped to ATT&CK technique T1068, which covers "Local Privilege Escalation." Organizations using Juju should implement immediate mitigations including updating to patched versions of the software, manually setting appropriate permissions on existing sockets, and conducting thorough security audits of all Juju installations. The recommended approach involves ensuring that UNIX domain sockets are created with restrictive permissions that only allow the intended processes to access them, typically using file permissions such as 0600 or appropriate user/group ownership settings. System administrators should also consider implementing monitoring solutions to detect unauthorized access attempts to Juju-related sockets and establish regular security assessments to identify similar permission misconfigurations in other system components.