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GHSA-2j3p-gqw5-g59j
No affected components available
Impact
Vulnerability Type: Local Privilege Escalation (LPE) / Improper Privilege Management / Arbitrary Command Execution.
The application automatically re-executes the previously failed command but does not properly drop elevated privileges during this process.
When the tool is executed with sudo or otherwise runs with an effective UID of root, it records the last executed command and attempts to rerun it. However, the application fails to restore the original unprivileged user context before re-executing the command. As a result, the retried command is executed with root privileges, even if the original command was issued by an unprivileged user.
This allows a local attacker to intentionally trigger a failed command under elevated execution and gain arbitrary command execution as root via the retry mechanism.
Who is impacted:
Any system where this tool is executed with elevated privileges is affected. The risk is especially high in environments where the tool is permitted to run via sudo, including configurations with NOPASSWD, as an unprivileged user can escalate privileges to root without additional interaction.
Proof of Concept
To verify the vulnerability without a shell, attempt to create a file in a root-protected directory.
1. Verify the file does not exist
sudo ls /root/proof_of_lpe
# Output: No such file or directory
2. Run the vulnerable command
sudo bash -c "SH_PREV_CMD='touch /root/proof_of_lpe' target/release/theshit fix"
3. Check if the file was created by root
sudo ls -l /root/proof_of_lpe
Expected Result:
The command succeeds silently, and the file /root/proof_of_lpe is created, confirming arbitrary command execution with root privileges.
Patches
The issue has been fixed in version 0.1.2.
The patch ensures that privilege levels are correctly handled during command re-execution. Before retrying any previously executed command, the application now explicitly resets the effective UID and GID to the original invoking user.
Workarounds
If upgrading is not possible, users should avoid executing the application with sudo or as the root user.
As a temporary mitigation, administrators should restrict the use of the tool in privileged contexts and ensure it is not included in sudoers configurations, particularly with NOPASSWD. Running the tool strictly as an unprivileged user prevents exploitation of the retry mechanism.
References
- Commit fixing the issue
- CWE-269: Improper Privilege Management
- CWE-273: Improper Check for Dropped Privileges
- CWE-250: Execution with Unnecessary Privileges
The vulnerability requires local access to the device to be exploited. It is easy for an attacker to exploit this vulnerability. An attacker does not need any special privileges or access rights. No user interaction is needed for the attacker to exploit this vulnerability. The impact is confined to the system where the vulnerability exists. There is a high impact on the confidentiality of the information. There is a high impact on the integrity of the data. There is a high impact on the availability of the system.
Exploitation activity has been observed. Apply available patches or mitigations urgently.
Probability that this vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days.
We did not find any exploit available. Neither in GitHub repositories nor in the Exploit-Database.
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