Nessus: "adduser" race condition vulnerability — GLSA 200408-11

Nessus contains a vulnerability allowing a user to perform a privilege escalation attack.

Affected packages

Package 	net-analyzer/nessus on all architectures
Affected versions 	<= 2.0.11
Unaffected versions 	>= 2.0.12

Background

Nessus is a free and powerful network security scanner.

Description

A race condition can occur in "nessus-adduser" if the user has not configured their TMPDIR variable.

Impact

A malicious user could exploit this bug to escalate privileges to the rights of the user running "nessus-adduser".

Workaround

There is no known workaround at this time. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the latest available version of Nessus.

Resolution

All Nessus users should upgrade to the latest version:

 # emerge sync
 
 # emerge -pv ">=net-analyzer/nessus-2.0.12"
 # emerge ">=net-analyzer/nessus-2.0.12"

References

    Secunia Advisory
    CVE-2004-1445