RHSA-2014:1091 — Security Advisory

An updated mod_wsgi package that fixes one security issue is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.

Red Hat Product Security has rated this update as having Important security impact. A Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base score, which gives a detailed severity rating, is available from the CVE link in the References section.

The mod_wsgi adapter is an Apache module that provides a WSGI-compliant interface for hosting Python-based web applications within Apache.

It was found that mod_wsgi did not properly drop privileges if the call to setuid() failed. If mod_wsgi was set up to allow unprivileged users to run WSGI applications, a local user able to run a WSGI application could possibly use this flaw to escalate their privileges on the system. (CVE-2014-0240)

Note: mod_wsgi is not intended to provide privilege separation for WSGI applications. Systems relying on mod_wsgi to limit or sandbox the privileges of mod_wsgi applications should migrate to a different solution with proper privilege separation.

Red Hat would like to thank Graham Dumpleton for reporting this issue. Upstream acknowledges Róbert Kisteleki as the original reporter.

All mod_wsgi users are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which contains a backported patch to correct this issue.