Skip to main content

Improper Authentication

CVE-2013-6171

Medium
5.8/10

Summary

checkpassword-reply in Dovecot before 2.2.7 performs setuid operations to a user who is authenticating, which allows local users to bypass authentication and access virtual email accounts by attaching to the process and using a restricted file descriptor to modify account information in the response to the dovecot-auth server.

  • MEDIUM
  • NETWORK
  • NONE
  • PARTIAL
  • PARTIAL
  • NONE

CWE-287 - Improper Authentication

Improper (or broken) authentication attacks are widespread, and have accounted for many of the worst data breaches in recent years. Improper authentication attacks are a class of vulnerabilities where an attacker impersonates a legitimate user by exploiting weaknesses in either session management or credential management to gain access to the user’s account. This can result in disclosure of sensitive information, and can lead to system compromise, theft, identity theft, and fraud.

References

Advisory Timeline

  • Published