A certain debugging component in IBM AIX 5.3 and 6.1 does not properly handle the (1) _LIB_INIT_DBG and (2) _LIB_INIT_DBG_FILE environment variables, which allows local users to gain privileges by leveraging a setuid-root program to create an arbitrary root-owned file with world-writable permissions, related to libC.a (aka the XL C++ runtime library) in AIX 5.3 and libc.a in AIX 6.1.

There is a an error in the handling of the _LIB_INIT_DBG and
_LIB_INIT_DBG_FILE environment variables in a debugging component of the XL C++ runtime library. A local user can exploit this error when executing setuid root programs linked with the XL C++ runtime library, and thereby create arbirtrary, world writeable files owned by root.

The successful exploitation of this vulnerability allows a local user to create arbitrary files and execute arbitrary code as the root user.

Note that in AIX 6.1 the debugging component moved from libC.a to libc.a. This means that the fix is delivered by updating the XL C++ runtime on AIX 5.3 and earlier, and by updating the bos.rte.libc fileset on AIX 6.1.

The following libraries are vulnerable :

AIX 5.3 and earlier: /usr/lpp/xlC/lib/libC.a

AIX 6.1: /usr/ccs/lib/libc.a /usr/ccs/lib/libp/libc.a.

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
64344	AIX 6.1 TL 3 : libC (IZ56206)	Nessus	AIX Local Security Checks	high
64343	AIX 6.1 TL 2 : libC (IZ56205)	Nessus	AIX Local Security Checks	high
64342	AIX 6.1 TL 1 : libC (IZ56204)	Nessus	AIX Local Security Checks	high
64341	AIX 6.1 TL 0 : libC (IZ56203)	Nessus	AIX Local Security Checks	high

Detections

Analytics

CVE-2009-2669

high

Tenable Plugins

high

high

high

high