7.2 - RHSA-2013:0849

Problem Description:

The Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.4 KVM Guest Image for cloud instances had an empty root password by default.

The Red Hat Security Response Team 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.

2. Description:

Red Hat provides a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.4 KVM Guest Image for cloud instances. This image is provided as a minimally configured system image which is available for use as-is or for configuration and customization as required by end users.

The Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.4 KVM Guest Image for cloud instances had an empty root password by default. To address this, Red Hat has created an updated image that locks the root password by default. This updated image is now available on RHN.

To correct existing Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.4 KVM Guest Images, any images or systems built using this Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.4 KVM Guest Image, or any currently running Red Hat Enterprise Linux instances instantiated from this image, users can lock the root password by issuing, as root, the command:

passwd -l root

Note: The default OpenSSH configuration disallows password logins when the password is empty, preventing a remote attacker from logging in without a password.

Root Cause

Kickstart can be used to automate operating system installations. A Kickstart file specifies settings for an installation. Once the installation system boots, it can read a Kickstart file and carry out the installation process without any further input from a user. Kickstart is used as part of the process of creating Images of Red Hat Enterprise Linux for cloud providers.

It was discovered that when no 'rootpw' command was specified in a Kickstart file, the image creator tools gave the root user an empty password rather than leaving the password locked, which could allow a local user to gain access to the root account (CVE-2013-2069).

We have corrected this issue by updating the Kickstart file used to build affected images to lock the password file.

This issue was caused by the way a tool was used to create Images, and not due to a security vulnerability in Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

To import the image into an OpenStack environment, download the image from Red Hat Network to a system that has the python-glanceclient package installed. Refer to the OpenStack Getting Started Guide, linked to in the References, for information on importing the image into an OpenStack environment. After successfully importing, it is also highly recommended that the "glance delete" command is used to delete any previous versions of the image that exist in the Glance image registry.

3. Solution:

The updated image is available from RHN, linked to in the References.

4. Bugs fixed (http://bugzilla.redhat.com/):

964299 - CVE-2013-2069 livecd-tools: improper handling of passwords

5. References:

https://www.redhat.com/security/data/cve/CVE-2013-2069.html https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#important https://rhn.redhat.com/rhn/software/channel/downloads/Download.do?cid=16952 https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_OpenStack/2/html/Getting_Started_Guide/ch09s02.html