CVE-2023-22809

Name of the Vulnerable Software and Affected Versions Sudo versions 1.8.0 through 1.9.12p1

Description The issue is related to the sudoedit feature in Sudo, which mishandles extra arguments passed in user-provided environment variables, such as SUDO EDITOR, VISUAL, and EDITOR. This allows a local attacker to append arbitrary entries to the list of files to process, leading to privilege escalation. The problem exists because a user-specified editor may contain a "--" argument that defeats a protection mechanism. For example, an EDITOR value like 'vim -- /path/to/extra/file' can be used to exploit this issue.

Recommendations For versions 1.8.0 through 1.9.12p1, update to a version newer than 1.9.12p2 to resolve the issue. As a temporary workaround, consider restricting the use of the sudoedit feature or limiting the environment variables that can be used with it. Additionally, avoid using the EDITOR variable with arguments that could defeat the protection mechanism, such as those containing "--".