FreeBSD VuXML: Documenting security issues in FreeBSD and the FreeBSD Ports Collection

cloud-init -- Wrong access permissions of authorized keys

Affected packages
20.4 <= cloud-init < 20.4.1

Details

VuXML ID 8899298f-5a92-11eb-8558-3085a9a47796
Discovery 2021-01-14
Entry 2021-01-19

cloud-init reports:

cloud-init release 20.4.1 is now available. This is a hotfix release, that contains a single patch to address a security issue in cloud-init 20.4.

Briefly, for users who provide more than one unique SSH key to cloud-init and have a shared AuthorizedKeysFile configured in sshd_config, cloud-init 20.4 started writing all of these keys to such a file, granting all such keys SSH access as root.

It's worth restating this implication: if you are using the default AuthorizedKeysFile setting in /etc/ssh/sshd_config, as most will be, then you are _not_ affected by this issue.

References

URL https://bugs.launchpad.net/cloud-init/+bug/1911680