CVE-2020-11934 MEDIUM

CVE-2020-11934: Sandbox escape vulnerability via snapctl user-open (xdg-open)

Vendor Canonical
Product snapd
Published July 29, 2020
Last update September 17, 2024

CVSS base score

5.9/10
Attack vector Local
Attack complexity Low
Privileges required Low
User interaction Required
Confidentiality None
Integrity High

CVSS vector

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:N/I:H/A:N

What the vulnerability does

01Description

It was discovered that snapctl user-open allowed altering the $XDG_DATA_DIRS environment variable when calling the system xdg-open. OpenURL() in usersession/userd/launcher.go would alter $XDG_DATA_DIRS to append a path to a directory controlled by the calling snap. A malicious snap could exploit this to bypass intended access restrictions to control how the host system xdg-open script opens the URL and, for example, execute a script shipped with the snap without confinement. This issue did not affect Ubuntu Core systems. Fixed in snapd versions 2.45.1ubuntu0.2, 2.45.1+18.04.2 and 2.45.1+20.04.2.

Key dates

02Disclosure timeline

July 29, 2020 CVE published
September 17, 2024 Record updated