IBM SONAS Administrator password can be read by the root user from the shell command hist

Systems Affected

Threat Level

Overview

A fix is available for IBM SONAS, for the security issue that after changing password of administrative user, the password can be read by the root user from the shell command history.

Description

One of the purposes of chuser command is to modify the password of an administrative user account in IBM SONAS. When used with the -p argument, the chuser command records the administrator password in the shell command history. The shell command history can subsequently be read by the root user. CVE-2014-3045 CVSS Base Score: 2.1

Impact

Solution/ Workarounds

A fix for these issues is in version 1.4.3.3 of IBM SONAS. Workarounds and Mitigations Workaround(s):

1. Modify HISTIGNORE environment variable for root user, so that chuser command will not be included in shell bash history. You could add this environment variable to .bashrc file in home directory of root user.

2. After changing password using chuser command, the admin user may get root user to clear the shell command history of root user, using history -c command. Mitigation(s) : A fix for these issues is in version 1.4.3.3 of IBM SONAS. Customers running an affected version of IBM SONAS should upgrade to 1.4.3.3 or a later version, so that the fix gets applied.

References

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S1004815

Disclaimer

The information provided herein is on "as is" basis, without warranty of any kind.