February Trending CVEs: CVE-2021-3156

As stewards of the lush and vast landscape of security vulnerabilities, we felt obliged to share with you the top trending CVEs of the past month (who's excited for winter to be over?! 😁☀️🌷). Brace yourself! Ok, here we go.

CVE-2021-3156

A new and major vulnerability was recently discovered. CVE 2021-3156, which is also known as Baron Samedit, is considered potentially severe. The cybersecurity experts are encouraging users and administrators to review this vulnerability and patch it as soon as possible. With this CVE, a threat actor may gain unprivileged root access and exploit Linux and Unix-based operating systems. 

Since this vulnerability uses the default within most Linux systems, the potential for exploitation is high. IT employees need to quickly identify which Linux systems are at risk and track remediation progress.

Updates about CVE-2021-3156

This vulnerability was disclosed on January 26, 2021. It’s a heap-based overflow recognized in Sudo, a utility that allows users to run programs with the security privilege of another user. 

The exploitation of this vulnerability allows an unprivileged user to gain root-level privileges. It was introduced in July 2011 and has been in hiding for nearly 10 years. When combined with a remote code execution exploit, an attacker may gain access to a system and increase its privileges.

Why is Baron Samedit a Serious Risk?

• CVE-2021-3156 is listed in the National Vulnerability Database with a 7.8 score. This is considered a high score. 
• Researchers have moderate confidence that attackers could weaponize this vulnerability because of the access to root-based privileges 
• Sudo is a default utility that is available in most Unix distributions, and it’s dangerous because the user does not need any type of special privileges to use this exploit. 

Visit the Vicarius Research Center for more information on CVEs and how to remediate them. You can also try a 30-day free trial of our TOPIA solution.

Prefer to listen instead? We got you covered 😏