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Debian Beep Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

A vulnerability has been discovered in the beep package which allows an authenticated user to escalate their privileges.
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Summary

A vulnerability has been discovered in the beep package which allows an authenticated user to escalate their privileges.

Affected platforms

The following platforms are known to be affected:

Debian Jessie

  • Debian Jessie - all package versions prior to 1.3-3+deb8u1
  • Debian Stretch - all package versions prior to 1.3-4+deb9u1
  • Other distributions based on Debian, including Ubuntu - all versions of beep up to 1.3.4

Debian Stretch

Threat details

Beep is a component of the Debian Linux distribution which allows the user to control the PC speaker. The package is not installed in the default configuration. The bug is a race condition, an undesirable situation that occurs when events do not happen in the intended sequence.

The escalation of privileges allows an attacker to use a compromised user account to bypass permissions and carry out administrative and system operations.


Remediation steps

Type Step
  • Update the beep package to the latest version, or uninstall it if not required.

Last edited: 17 February 2020 12:41 pm