Executive brief
A vulnerability exists in the suidperl and sperl utilities, which are components used to run Perl scripts with elevated system privileges. These programs fail to properly drop administrative (root) permissions when attempting to switch back to a standard user account. This flaw allows a local user to gain full administrative control over the entire operating system, potentially leading to unauthorized data access or system disruption.
Technical details
A privilege escalation vulnerability exists in suidperl and sperl due to improper privilege management. When these programs attempt to transition from a privileged state (root) back to the original unprivileged user (UID), they fail to correctly drop all administrative capabilities. A local attacker with the ability to execute these utilities can exploit this flaw to maintain root access. This is a classic setuid vulnerability where the process retains effective or saved UIDs that allow for re-escalation or unauthorized actions. The vulnerability is reachable locally and does not require special authentication beyond initial system access.
Affected products
- Perl Foundation Perl (suidperl/sperl)
Timeline
- 1996-06-26: disclosed: Initial NVD publication date