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CRITICAL

mysql: general_log can write to configuration files, leading to privilege escalation (CPU Oct 2016)

Published Sep 20, 2016

Description

Oracle MySQL through 5.5.52, 5.6.x through 5.6.33, and 5.7.x through 5.7.15; MariaDB before 5.5.51, 10.0.x before 10.0.27, and 10.1.x before 10.1.17; and Percona Server before 5.5.51-38.1, 5.6.x before 5.6.32-78.0, and 5.7.x before 5.7.14-7 allow local users to create arbitrary configurations and bypass certain protection mechanisms by setting general_log_file to a my.cnf configuration. NOTE: this can be leveraged to execute arbitrary code with root privileges by setting malloc_lib. NOTE: the affected MySQL version information is from Oracle's October 2016 CPU. Oracle has not commented on third-party claims that the issue was silently patched in MySQL 5.5.52, 5.6.33, and 5.7.15.

Affected products

Remediation

Red Hat statement

All MySQL and MariaDB packages in Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat Software Collections install the my.cnf configuration file in /etc as root-owned and not writeable to mysqld's mysql user. This default configuration stops the published exploit for this issue. All MySQL and MariaDB packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (either those directly included in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 or from Red Hat Software Collections for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7) run mysqld_safe with mysql user privileges and not root privileges, limiting the potential impact to code execution as mysql system user. The MySQL 5.1 packages in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 do not implement support for library preloading, completely preventing the remote attack vector used by the published exploit. For additional details, refer to: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1375198#c12

Red Hat mitigation

- Ensure all MySQL / MariaDB configuration files are not writeable to the mysql user. This is the default configuration in Red Hat products. - Ensure that non-administrative database users are not granted FILE privilege. Applications accessing data in MySQL / MariaDB databases, including web application potentially vulnerable to SQL injections, should use database accounts with the lowest privileges required. - If FILE permission needs to be granted to some non-administrative database users, use secure_file_priv setting to limit where files can be written to or read from.

Metrics

Weaknesses (2)

CWE-264

CWE-732

Incorrect Permission Assignment

References (32)

Change history (0)

No recorded changes yet.

Sources
CVE.org / MITRE
Status PUBLISHED
Assigner mitre
Published Sep 20, 2016
Updated Aug 6, 2024
Reserved Aug 10, 2016
Link CVE-2016-6662
CISA Vulnrichment
Updated n/a
NVD
Status Modified
Modified Jun 17, 2026
Link CVE-2016-6662
Red Hat
Severity Important
Public date Sep 12, 2016
Links CVE-2016-6662 - Bugzilla