• Home
  • Cyber Crime
  • Cyber warfare
  • APT
  • Data Breach
  • Deep Web
  • Digital ID
  • Hacking
  • Hacktivism
  • Intelligence
  • Internet of Things
  • Laws and regulations
  • Malware
  • Mobile
  • Reports
  • Security
  • Social Networks
  • Terrorism
  • ICS-SCADA
  • POLICIES
  • Contact me
MUST READ

Kelly Benefits data breach has impacted 550,000 people, and the situation continues to worsen as the investigation progresses

 | 

Cisco removed the backdoor account from its Unified Communications Manager

 | 

U.S. Sanctions Russia's Aeza Group for aiding crooks with bulletproof hosting

 | 

Qantas confirms customer data breach amid Scattered Spider attacks

 | 

CVE-2025-6554 is the fourth Chrome zero-day patched by Google in 2025

 | 

U.S. CISA adds TeleMessage TM SGNL flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

 | 

A sophisticated cyberattack hit the International Criminal Court

 | 

Esse Health data breach impacted 263,000 individuals

 | 

Europol dismantles €460M crypto scam targeting 5,000 victims worldwide

 | 

CISA and U.S. Agencies warn of ongoing Iranian cyber threats to critical infrastructure

 | 

U.S. CISA adds Citrix NetScaler flaw to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

 | 

Canada bans Hikvision over national security concerns

 | 

Denmark moves to protect personal identity from deepfakes with new copyright law

 | 

Ahold Delhaize data breach affected over 2.2 Million individuals

 | 

Facebook wants access to your camera roll for AI photo edits

 | 

SECURITY AFFAIRS MALWARE NEWSLETTER ROUND 51

 | 

Security Affairs newsletter Round 530 by Pierluigi Paganini – INTERNATIONAL EDITION

 | 

The FBI warns that Scattered Spider is now targeting the airline sector

 | 

LapDogs: China-nexus hackers Hijack 1,000+ SOHO devices for espionage

 | 

Taking over millions of developers exploiting an Open VSX Registry flaw

 | 
  • Home
  • Cyber Crime
  • Cyber warfare
  • APT
  • Data Breach
  • Deep Web
  • Digital ID
  • Hacking
  • Hacktivism
  • Intelligence
  • Internet of Things
  • Laws and regulations
  • Malware
  • Mobile
  • Reports
  • Security
  • Social Networks
  • Terrorism
  • ICS-SCADA
  • POLICIES
  • Contact me
  • Home
  • Breaking News
  • Hacking
  • Security
  • OpenBSD addresses authentication bypass, privilege escalation issues

OpenBSD addresses authentication bypass, privilege escalation issues

Pierluigi Paganini December 06, 2019

Experts from Qualys Research Labs discovered four high-severity security flaws in OpenBSD, one of which is a type authentication bypass issue.

Researchers from Qualys Research Labs discovered four high-severity security vulnerabilities in OpenBSD, a type authentication bypass issue and three privilege escalation bugs.

The three issued could be exploited by local users or malware to gain privileges of an auth group, root, as well as of other users, respectively.

The OpenBSD development team addressed the flaws less than two days after they were reported by the experts by releasing security patches for OpenBSD 6.5 and OpenBSD 6.6.

The first OpenBSD vulnerability, an authentication bypass issue tracked as CVE-2019-19521, affects the way OpenBSD’s authentication framework parses the username supplied by a user while logging in through smtpd, ldapd, radiusd, su, or sshd services.

“We discovered an authentication-bypass vulnerability in OpenBSD’s authentication system: this vulnerability is remotely exploitable in smtpd, ldapd, and radiusd, but its real-world impact should be studied on a case-by-case basis. For example, sshd is not exploitable thanks to its defense-in-depth mechanisms.” reads the security advisory published by the experts.

A remote attacker could exploit this vulnerability to access vulnerable services by entering the username as “-schallenge” or “-schallenge: passwd.” The ‘-‘ symbol prefixed to the username tricks OpenBSD into interpreting the value as a command-line option.

The “-schallenge” is interpreted as “-s challenge” and forces the system into ignoring the challenge protocol that eventually allows to bypass the authentication automatically.

“If an attacker specifies a username of the form ‘-option’, they can influence the behavior of the authentication program in unexpected ways,” continues the advisory.

The flaw is exploitable in smtpd, ldapd, and radiusd, but not in sshd or su because the presence of the defense-in-depth mechanisms that hang the connection even after successful authentication bypass.

The second vulnerability tracked as CVE-2019-19520 is a local privilege escalation issue caused by a failed check in xlock. A local attacker can trigger the issue to obtain the privileges of set-group-ID “auth” through xlock, which is installed by default. 

The third issue trackers as CVE-2019-19522 is an authentication bypass issue found in the OpenBSD’s authentication protocol.

A local attacker with ‘auth‘ group permission can gain full privileges of the root user due to the incorrect operation of authorization mechanisms via “S/Key” and “YubiKey.” (“which is a non-default configuration“)

The last issue tracked as CVE-2019-19519 is caused by a logical error in one of the su’s primary functions, that could be exploited by a local attacker to achieve any user’s login class, often excluding root, by exploiting su’s -L option.

The experts released PoC exploits for each vulnerability in the advisory, OpenBSD users are recommended to install the security patches using syspatch mechanism.

[adrotate banner=”9″] [adrotate banner=”12″]

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – OpenBSD, hacking)

[adrotate banner=”5″]

[adrotate banner=”13″]


facebook linkedin twitter

hacking news information security news OpenBSD Pierluigi Paganini Security Affairs Security News

you might also like

Pierluigi Paganini July 03, 2025
Kelly Benefits data breach has impacted 550,000 people, and the situation continues to worsen as the investigation progresses
Read more
Pierluigi Paganini July 02, 2025
Cisco removed the backdoor account from its Unified Communications Manager
Read more

leave a comment

newsletter

Subscribe to my email list and stay
up-to-date!

    recent articles

    Kelly Benefits data breach has impacted 550,000 people, and the situation continues to worsen as the investigation progresses

    Uncategorized / July 03, 2025

    Cisco removed the backdoor account from its Unified Communications Manager

    Security / July 02, 2025

    U.S. Sanctions Russia's Aeza Group for aiding crooks with bulletproof hosting

    Cyber Crime / July 02, 2025

    Qantas confirms customer data breach amid Scattered Spider attacks

    Cyber Crime / July 02, 2025

    CVE-2025-6554 is the fourth Chrome zero-day patched by Google in 2025

    Hacking / July 02, 2025

    To contact me write an email to:

    Pierluigi Paganini :
    pierluigi.paganini@securityaffairs.co

    LEARN MORE

    QUICK LINKS

    • Home
    • Cyber Crime
    • Cyber warfare
    • APT
    • Data Breach
    • Deep Web
    • Digital ID
    • Hacking
    • Hacktivism
    • Intelligence
    • Internet of Things
    • Laws and regulations
    • Malware
    • Mobile
    • Reports
    • Security
    • Social Networks
    • Terrorism
    • ICS-SCADA
    • POLICIES
    • Contact me

    Copyright@securityaffairs 2024

    We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept All”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent.
    Cookie SettingsAccept All
    Manage consent

    Privacy Overview

    This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities...
    Necessary
    Always Enabled
    Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
    Non-necessary
    Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
    SAVE & ACCEPT