HPLIP: Privilege escalation — GLSA 200710-26

The hpssd daemon might allow local attackers to execute arbitrary commands with root privileges.

Affected packages

Package	net-print/hplip on all architectures
Affected versions	< 2.7.9-r1
Unaffected versions	revision >= 1.7.4a-r2 >= 2.7.9-r1

Background

The Hewlett-Packard Linux Imaging and Printing system (HPLIP) provides drivers for HP's inkjet and laser printers, scanners and fax machines. It integrates with the Common UNIX Printing System (CUPS) and Scanner Access Now Easy (SANE).

Description

Kees Cook from the Ubuntu Security team discovered that the hpssd daemon does not correctly validate user supplied data before passing it to a "popen3()" call.

Impact

A local attacker may be able to exploit this vulnerability by sending a specially crafted request to the hpssd daemon to execute arbitrary commands with the privileges of the user running hpssd, usually root.

Workaround

There is no known workaround at this time.

Resolution

All HPLIP users should upgrade to the latest version:

 # emerge --sync
 # emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose "net-print/hplip"

References

CVE-2007-5208

Release date
October 24, 2007

Latest revision
October 24, 2007: 01

Severity
high

Exploitable
local

Bugzilla entries

195565