The "Dirty Pipe" Linux kernel weakness – a high-severity vulnerability that offers root access to unprivileged users with local access in all major distros – affects a majority of QNAP's network-attached storage (NAS) appliances, the Taiwanese company stated.
The Linux kernel on QNAP NAS running QTS 5.0.x and QuTS hero h5.0.x, according to QNAP, is affected by Dirty Pipe, a recently revealed local privilege-escalation vulnerability. A local user with no access can get admin privileges and insert malicious code if this vulnerability is exploited.
The flaw was identified and reported eight days ago by Max Kellermann of CM4all, a security researcher. The vulnerability, which has been identified as CVE-2022-0847, has been present in the Linux kernel since version 5.8. Fortunately, Linux kernels 5.10.102, 5.15.25, and 5.16.11 have been updated to address the issue.
However, as Linux news site Linuxiac points out, Dirty Pipe is just not simply a threat to Linux machines: because Android is built on the Linux kernel, any device running version 5.8 or later is vulnerable, putting a large number of people at risk. For example, Linuxiac cited the Google Pixel 6 and Samsung Galaxy S22: the widely used phones run on Linux kernel 5.10.43, making them susceptible.
"QNAP will hopefully deliver a kernel update for the vulnerability soon," Mike Parkin, a highly experienced engineer at Vulcan Cyber. "This is the storage device vendor's second recent incident," Parkin further pointed out in an email.
NAS devices that allow authorized users and customers to store and retrieve data from a single location boost productivity by providing cloud computing capabilities inside networks, according to Schless. Dirty Pipe has been compared to Dirty Cow by some; an older privilege escalation flaw (CVE-2016-5195) which has been in Linux for nine years — since 2007 – before it was publicly exploited in 2016 against web-facing Linux servers.
Dirty Pipe is a lot like Dirty Cow, except it's a lot worse as it's easy to take advantage of. According to Parkin, the vulnerability's mitigating element is whether it requires local access, which reduces the danger marginally. The Dirty Pipe flaw has also been fixed in the newest Linux kernel code. Furthermore, patches for the major distributions are expected to be available soon.
