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Intel® Manycore Platform Software Stack Privilege Escalation
| Intel ID: | INTEL-SA-00036 |
|---|---|
| Product family: | Intel® Manycore Platform Software Stack |
| Impact of vulnerability: | Elevation of Privilege |
| Severity rating: | Moderate |
| Original release: | Mar 31, 2014 |
| Last revised: | Mar 31, 2014 |
Summary:
A previously undisclosed vulnerability in the Intel® Manycore Platform Software Stack (Intel® MPSS) was discovered during internal testing. The vulnerability could allow elevation of privilege under certain circumstances if an attacker has a valid account on a host that contains an Intel® Xeon Phi™ coprocessor.
Description:
A previously undisclosed vulnerability in the Intel® Manycore Platform Software Stack (Intel® MPSS) was discovered during internal testing. The vulnerability could allow elevation of privilege under certain circumstances if an attacker has a valid account on a host that contains an Intel® Xeon Phi™ coprocessor. The security update addresses the vulnerability by correcting how SSH key files processed by micctrl are validated.
The vulnerability is not affected by the Linux* OS version on the host. Intel recommends updating to 2.1.6720-23 or 3.1.4-1 for all supported versions of the Linux* host OS, RHEL 6.0, RHEL 6.1, RHEL 6.2, RHEL 6.3, RHEL 6.4, RHEL 6.5, SUSE 11.1, SUSE 11.2, SUSE 11.3. Intel® MPSS for Microsoft* Windows* is not subject to this vulnerability and thus no updates will be provided for these versions of the Intel® MPSS.
Intel’s processors are functioning within specification; this is a software implementation issue.
Recommendations:
Impacted customers should download and install this security update, replacing the matching version of the Intel® MPSS. For example, customers running Intel® MPSS 2.1.6720-12 or later will need to uninstall that version and install version 2.1.6720-23. Likewise, customers running Intel® MPSS 3.1.0 or later will need to uninstall that version and install version 3.1.4-1 or 3.2.
For administrators and enterprise installations, Intel recommends updating to MPSS 2.1.6720-23, 3.1.4-1 or 3.2 at the earliest opportunity.
Instructions on how get and apply the update are available at http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-manycore-platform-software-stack-mpss
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