Cyber Attack

Critical Rsync Flaws Expose Unix Systems to Remote Code Execution Attacks

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January 15, 2025

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Critical Rsync Flaws Expose Unix Systems to Remote Code Execution Attacks

Critical Security Flaws Discovered in Rsync File Synchronization Tool

Six significant security vulnerabilities have been identified in Rsync, a widely-used file synchronization tool for Unix systems. These flaws could potentially enable attackers to execute arbitrary code and compromise system security.

Key Vulnerabilities:

1. CVE-2024-12084 (CVSS 9.8): Critical heap-buffer overflow vulnerability
2. CVE-2024-12085 (CVSS 7.5): Information leak through uninitialized stack contents
3. CVE-2024-12086 (CVSS 6.1): Server-side file leak vulnerability
4. CVE-2024-12087 (CVSS 6.5): Path traversal vulnerability
5. CVE-2024-12088 (CVSS 6.5): Safe-links bypass vulnerability
6. CVE-2024-12747 (CVSS 5.6): Symbolic-link race condition

Impact:
– Attackers can potentially control malicious servers
– Read/write access to client files
– Extraction of sensitive data (SSH keys)
– Malicious code execution through file overwrites

Security Fix:
– Patches available in Rsync version 3.4.0

Temporary Mitigations:
– For CVE-2024-12084: Disable SHA* support
– For CVE-2024-12085: Compile with zero stack contents initialization

The vulnerabilities were discovered by Google Cloud Vulnerability Research team members and independent security researcher Aleksei Gorban. Users are strongly advised to update to the latest version immediately.

Keywords: rsync security vulnerabilities, file synchronization security, CVE-2024-12084, unix system security, rsync patch update, critical heap buffer overflow

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