CVE-2023-22809

A vulnerability was found in sudo. Exposure in how sudoedit handles user-provided environment variables leads to arbitrary file writing with privileges of the RunAs user (usually root). The prerequisite for exploitation is that the current user must be authorized by the sudoers policy to edit a file using sudoedit.

The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.

It is possible to prevent a user-specified editor from being used by sudoedit by adding the following line to the sudoers file.

Defaults!sudoedit    env_delete+="SUDO_EDITOR VISUAL EDITOR"

To restrict the editor when editing specific files, a Cmnd_Alias can be used, for example:

Cmnd_Alias              EDIT_MOTD = sudoedit /etc/motd
Defaults!EDIT_MOTD      env_delete+="SUDO_EDITOR VISUAL EDITOR"
user                    ALL = EDIT_MOTD

But if possible please update the affected package as soon as possible.