tmpwatch has a local denial of service and root exploit

tmpwatch as shipped in Red Hat Linux 6.1, 6.2, and 7.0 uses fork() to
recursively process subdirectories, enabling a local user to perform a
denial of service attack. Tmpwatch from Red Hat Linux 6.2 and 7.0 also
contains an option to allow it to use the fuser command to check for open
files before removal. It executed fuser in an insecure fashion, allowing a
local root exploit.

The tmpwatch program periodically cleans up files in temporary directories
by removing all files older than a certain age. In Red Hat Linux 6.1, 6.2,
and 7.0, it used fork() to recursively process subdirectories. If a
malicious user created many layers of subdirectories (thousands) in a
temporary directory monitored by tmpwatch, the system process table would
fill up, requiring a reboot.

Additionally, tmpwatch in 6.2 and 7.0 contains an option, "--fuser", that
attempts to user the fuser command to check if a file is in use before
removal. However, it executed fuser with the system() call in an insecure
fashion. A malicious user could construct an environment such that this
provided them a local root shell. Tmpwatch now uses execle() to run fuser.

For each RPM for your particular architecture, run:

rpm -Fvh [filename]

where filename is the name of the RPM.

17286 - tmpwatch run from cron allows locale DoS.

http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2000-0816
http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2000-0829
Thanks go to Internet Security System's X-Force team (xforce@iss.net) for
discovering and documenting the local root exploit.

fork