KDE kdelibs before 4.14 and kauth before 5.1 does not properly use D-Bus for communication with a polkit authority, which allows local users to bypass intended access restrictions by leveraging a PolkitUnixProcess PolkitSubject race condition via a (1) setuid process or (2) pkexec process, related to CVE-2013-4288 and "PID reuse race conditions."

It was discovered that KAuth, part of kdelibs, uses polkit in a way that is prone to a race condition that may allow authorization bypass.

NOTE: Tenable Network Security has extracted the preceding description block directly from the DLA security advisory. Tenable has attempted to automatically clean and format it as much as possible without introducing additional issues.

The update has a fix for CVE-2014-5033, KAuth was calling PolicyKit 1 (polkit) in an insecure way.

Note that Tenable Network Security has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Fedora security advisory. Tenable has attempted to automatically clean and format it as much as possible without introducing additional issues.

Updated polkit-qt packages that fix one security issue are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.

Red Hat Product Security has rated this update as having Important security impact. A Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base score, which gives a detailed severity rating, is available from the CVE link in the References section.

Polkit-qt is a library that lets developers use the PolicyKit API through a Qt-styled API. The polkit-qt library is used by the KDE Authentication Agent (KAuth), which is a part of kdelibs.

It was found that polkit-qt handled authorization requests with PolicyKit via a D-Bus API that is vulnerable to a race condition. A local user could use this flaw to bypass intended PolicyKit authorizations. This update modifies polkit-qt to communicate with PolicyKit via a different API that is not vulnerable to the race condition. (CVE-2014-5033)

All polkit-qt users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which contain a backported patch to correct this issue.

From Red Hat Security Advisory 2014:1359 :

Updated polkit-qt packages that fix one security issue are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.

Red Hat Product Security has rated this update as having Important security impact. A Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base score, which gives a detailed severity rating, is available from the CVE link in the References section.

Polkit-qt is a library that lets developers use the PolicyKit API through a Qt-styled API. The polkit-qt library is used by the KDE Authentication Agent (KAuth), which is a part of kdelibs.

It was found that polkit-qt handled authorization requests with PolicyKit via a D-Bus API that is vulnerable to a race condition. A local user could use this flaw to bypass intended PolicyKit authorizations. This update modifies polkit-qt to communicate with PolicyKit via a different API that is not vulnerable to the race condition. (CVE-2014-5033)

All polkit-qt users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which contain a backported patch to correct this issue.

KDE released updates for its Applications and Development Platform, the first in a series of monthly stabilization updates to the 4.14 series. This update also includes the latest stable calligra-2.8.6 and digikam-4.3.0 releases. See also http://kde.org/announcements/4.14/ , http://kde.org/announcements/announce-4.14.1.php , https://www.calligra.org/news/calligra-2-8-6-released/ , https://www.digikam.org/node/718

The update also addresses CVE-2014-5033, fixed in kdelibs ' 4.14.0:
KAuth was calling PolicyKit 1 (polkit) in an insecure way.

Note that Tenable Network Security has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Fedora security advisory. Tenable has attempted to automatically clean and format it as much as possible without introducing additional issues.

updated to the new release of polkit-qt

Note that Tenable Network Security has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Fedora security advisory. Tenable has attempted to automatically clean and format it as much as possible without introducing additional issues.

KDE4 Libraries and Workspace received a security fix to fix a race condition in DBUS/Polkit authorization, where local attackers could potentially call root KDE services without proper authenticiation.
(CVE-2014-5033)

Additionaly a interlaced GIF display bug in KHTML was fixed.
(kde#330148)

This update also includes a kdebase4-workspace minor version update to 4.11.11 with various bugfixes.

Sebastian Krahmer discovered that Kauth used Policykit insecurely by relying on the process ID. This could result in privilege escalation.

It was discovered that kauth was using polkit in an unsafe manner. A local attacker could possibly use this issue to bypass intended polkit authorizations.

Note that Tenable Network Security has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Ubuntu security advisory. Tenable has attempted to automatically clean and format it as much as possible without introducing additional issues.

Martin Sandsmark reports :

The KAuth framework uses polkit-1 API which tries to authenticate using the requestors PID. This is prone to PID reuse race conditions.

This potentially allows a malicious application to pose as another for authentication purposes when executing privileged actions.

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
82221	Debian DLA-76-1 : kde4libs security update	Nessus	Debian Local Security Checks	medium
78241	Fedora 19 : kdelibs-4.11.5-5.fc19 (2014-11348)	Nessus	Fedora Local Security Checks	medium
78073	RHEL 7 : polkit-qt (RHSA-2014:1359)	Nessus	Red Hat Local Security Checks	medium
78072	Oracle Linux 7 : polkit-qt (ELSA-2014-1359)	Nessus	Oracle Linux Local Security Checks	medium
78070	CentOS 7 : polkit-qt (CESA-2014:1359)	Nessus	CentOS Local Security Checks	medium
77937	Fedora 20 : akonadi-1.13.0-2.fc20 / amor-4.14.1-1.fc20 / analitza-4.14.1-1.fc20 / ark-4.14.1-1.fc20 / etc (2014-11448)	Nessus	Fedora Local Security Checks	medium
77772	Fedora 20 : polkit-qt-0.112.0-1.fc20 (2014-9641)	Nessus	Fedora Local Security Checks	medium
77771	Fedora 19 : polkit-qt-0.112.0-1.fc19 (2014-9602)	Nessus	Fedora Local Security Checks	medium
77129	openSUSE Security Update : kdelibs4 (openSUSE-SU-2014:0981-1)	Nessus	SuSE Local Security Checks	medium
77123	Debian DSA-3004-1 : kde4libs - security update	Nessus	Debian Local Security Checks	medium
76962	Ubuntu 14.04 LTS : KDE-Libs vulnerability (USN-2304-1)	Nessus	Ubuntu Local Security Checks	critical
76951	FreeBSD : kdelibs -- KAuth PID Reuse Flaw (2f90556f-18c6-11e4-9cc4-5453ed2e2b49)	Nessus	FreeBSD Local Security Checks	medium

Detections

Analytics

CVE-2014-5033

critical

Tenable Plugins

medium

medium

medium

medium

medium

medium

medium

medium

medium

medium

critical

medium