CVE-2023-4001 Grub2: bypass the grub password protection feature

Medium 6.8 Published Updated

An attacker with physical access can bypass GRUB password protection on Red Hat systems by using a USB drive with a duplicate UUID.

Exploited in the wild
Not known
Login needed
Not needed
Attackable
Local or same network only
Victim action needed
Not needed
Fix
Available

What is CVE-2023-4001?

CVE-2023-4001 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Fedoraproject Fedora, published on 15 Jan 2024. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

An authentication bypass flaw was found in GRUB due to the way that GRUB uses the UUID of a device to search for the configuration file that contains the password hash for the GRUB password protection feature. An attacker capable of attaching an external drive such as a USB stick containing a file system with a duplicate UUID (the same as in the "/boot/" file system) can bypass the GRUB password protection feature on UEFI systems, which enumerate removable drives before non-removable ones. This issue was introduced in a downstream patch in Red Hat's version of grub2 and does not affect the upstream package.

Weakness: CWE-290

Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-4001?

It affects 3 products.

Linux distribution packages (40)
grub2-common AlmaLinux:9All versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2.alma.1
grub2-efi-aa64 AlmaLinux:9All versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2.alma.1
grub2-efi-aa64-cdboot AlmaLinux:9All versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2.alma.1
grub2-efi-aa64-modules AlmaLinux:9All versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2.alma.1
grub2-efi-x64 AlmaLinux:9All versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2.alma.1
grub2-efi-x64-cdboot AlmaLinux:9All versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2.alma.1
grub2-efi-x64-modules AlmaLinux:9All versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2.alma.1
grub2-pc AlmaLinux:9All versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2.alma.1
grub2-pc-modules AlmaLinux:9All versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2.alma.1
grub2-ppc64le AlmaLinux:9All versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2.alma.1
grub2-ppc64le-modules AlmaLinux:9All versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2.alma.1
grub2-tools AlmaLinux:9All versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2.alma.1
grub2-tools-efi AlmaLinux:9All versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2.alma.1
grub2-tools-extra AlmaLinux:9All versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2.alma.1
grub2-tools-minimal AlmaLinux:9All versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2.alma.1
grub2 Red Hat:enterprise_linux:9::baseosAll versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2
grub2-common Red Hat:enterprise_linux:9::baseosAll versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2
grub2-debuginfo Red Hat:enterprise_linux:9::baseosAll versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2
grub2-debugsource Red Hat:enterprise_linux:9::baseosAll versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2
grub2-efi-aa64 Red Hat:enterprise_linux:9::baseosAll versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2
grub2-efi-aa64-cdboot Red Hat:enterprise_linux:9::baseosAll versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2
grub2-efi-aa64-modules Red Hat:enterprise_linux:9::baseosAll versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2
grub2-efi-x64 Red Hat:enterprise_linux:9::baseosAll versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2
grub2-efi-x64-cdboot Red Hat:enterprise_linux:9::baseosAll versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2
grub2-efi-x64-modules Red Hat:enterprise_linux:9::baseosAll versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2
grub2-emu-debuginfo Red Hat:enterprise_linux:9::baseosAll versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2
grub2-pc Red Hat:enterprise_linux:9::baseosAll versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2
grub2-pc-modules Red Hat:enterprise_linux:9::baseosAll versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2
grub2-ppc64le Red Hat:enterprise_linux:9::baseosAll versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2
grub2-ppc64le-modules Red Hat:enterprise_linux:9::baseosAll versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2
grub2-tools Red Hat:enterprise_linux:9::baseosAll versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2
grub2-tools-debuginfo Red Hat:enterprise_linux:9::baseosAll versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2
grub2-tools-efi Red Hat:enterprise_linux:9::baseosAll versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2
grub2-tools-efi-debuginfo Red Hat:enterprise_linux:9::baseosAll versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2
grub2-tools-extra Red Hat:enterprise_linux:9::baseosAll versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2
grub2-tools-extra-debuginfo Red Hat:enterprise_linux:9::baseosAll versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2
grub2-tools-minimal Red Hat:enterprise_linux:9::baseosAll versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2
grub2-tools-minimal-debuginfo Red Hat:enterprise_linux:9::baseosAll versions1:2.06-70.el9_3.2
grub2 Red Hat:rhel_eus:9.0::baseosAll versions1:2.06-27.el9_0.16
grub2-common Red Hat:rhel_eus:9.0::baseosAll versions1:2.06-27.el9_0.16

Products include Fedoraproject Fedora, Gnu Grub2, Redhat Enterprise Linux.

How do I fix CVE-2023-4001?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2023-4001 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-4001 in the wild and no public exploit code.

All Fedoraproject Fedora vulnerabilities

Sources

Also known as ALSA-2024:0468, CLSA-2024-1712672279, GHSA-rr4v-xrwq-7rhx, RHSA-2024:0437, RHSA-2024:0456, RHSA-2024:0468 and 1 more.

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