Nginx (Debian-based distros) - Root Privilege Escalation Vulnerability (CVE-2016-1247)

[Dawid Golunski <dawid () legalhackers com>]

Vulnerability: Nginx (Debian-based distros) - Root Privilege
Escalation Exploit (CVE-2016-1247)

Discovered by: Dawid Golunski (@dawid_golunski)
https://legalhackers.com

Nginx web server packaging on Debian-based distributions such as Debian or
Ubuntu was found to create log directories with insecure permissions which
can be exploited by malicious local attackers to escalate their privileges
from nginx/web user (www-data) to root.
The vulnerability could be easily exploited by attackers who have managed to
compromise a web application hosted on Nginx server and gained access to
www-data account to escalate their privileges to root without any
admin interaction thanks to cron.daily.

Vulnerability fixed in the following packages:
Nginx 1.6.2-5+deb8u3 package on Debian
Nginx 1.10.0-0ubuntu0.16.04.3 on Ubuntu (16.04 LTS)


The up-to-date advisory can be found at:

https://legalhackers.com/advisories/Nginx-Exploit-Deb-Root-PrivEsc-CVE-2016-1247.html

For updates, follow:

https://twitter.com/dawid_golunski

Copy of the exploit is also attached to this message.

Attachment: nginxed-root.sh
Description: