Race to the Core: Systemd and Apport Vulnerabilities Exposed!
In a nutshell, local information disclosure vulnerabilities in apport and systemd-coredump (CVE-2025-5054 and CVE-2025-4598) let attackers read core dumps from crashed SUID programs. This means they could potentially access sensitive data like password hashes. A race condition allows exploitation before files are analyzed.
Hot Take:
In the never-ending saga of cat and mouse, where hackers are the cats, and unsuspecting systems are the mice, the latest episode involves a new race condition that could expose your precious secrets faster than you can say “Oops, my passwords!” It’s like watching a hacker version of “The Amazing Race”—only this time, the prize is your system’s deepest, darkest secrets!
Key Points:
- Vulnerabilities found in Ubuntu’s apport and systemd-coredump could let local attackers access sensitive information.
- Race conditions allow attackers to replace crashed processes with others to read core dumps.
- Proofs of concept show attackers can extract password hashes and other sensitive data.
- Systemd-coredump’s speed makes exploitation harder, but not impossible.
- Mitigation involves adjusting core dump handling and leveraging new kernel features.
Already a member? Log in here