CVE-2020-16123 Bypass of snapd pulseaudio restrictions

What is CVE-2020-16123?

CVE-2020-16123 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Canonical Ubuntu Linux, published on 3 Dec 2020. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.

Official description

An Ubuntu-specific patch in PulseAudio created a race condition where the snap policy module would fail to identify a client connection from a snap as coming from a snap if SCM_CREDENTIALS were missing, allowing the snap to connect to PulseAudio without proper confinement. This could be exploited by an attacker to expose sensitive information. Fixed in 1:13.99.3-1ubuntu2, 1:13.99.2-1ubuntu2.1, 1:13.99.1-1ubuntu3.8, 1:11.1-1ubuntu7.11, and 1:8.0-0ubuntu3.15.

Weakness: CWE-362

Which versions are affected by CVE-2020-16123?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Canonical Ubuntu Linux.

How do I fix CVE-2020-16123?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2020-16123 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-16123 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Canonical Ubuntu Linux

• CVE-2020-11651 SaltStack Salt Authentication Bypass Exploited Critical 9.8
• CVE-2020-7247 OpenSMTPD Remote Code Execution Exploited Critical 9.8
• CVE-2019-16928 Exim Out-of-bounds Write Exploited Critical 9.8
• CVE-2018-6789 Exim Buffer Overflow Exploited Critical 9.8
• CVE-2015-2590 Oracle Java SE and Java SE Embedded Remote Code Execution Exploited Critical 9.8

All Canonical Ubuntu Linux vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as GHSA-h38w-g4mp-rwv7, UBUNTU-CVE-2020-16123, USN-4640-1.