USN-5496-1: cloud-init vulnerability

29 June 2022

cloud-init could be made to expose sensitive information.

Reduce your security exposure

Ubuntu Pro provides ten-year security coverage to 25,000+ packages in Main and Universe repositories, and it is free for up to five machines.

Learn more about Ubuntu Pro

Releases

Packages

  • cloud-init - initialization and customization tool for cloud instances

Details

Mike Stroyan discovered that cloud-init could log password hashes when
reporting schema failures. An attacker with access to these logs could
potentially use this to gain user credentials.

Reduce your security exposure

Ubuntu Pro provides ten-year security coverage to 25,000+ packages in Main and Universe repositories, and it is free for up to five machines.

Learn more about Ubuntu Pro

Update instructions

The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following package versions:

Ubuntu 22.04
Ubuntu 21.10
Ubuntu 20.04
Ubuntu 18.04

In general, a standard system update will make the necessary changes.
Please note that sensitive information may have been logged to remote
logging aggregators as well as to the system journal, and removal of
such information may be required. Similarly, cloud-init configurations
that log in non-default locations may also require the removal of
sensitive information.

References