Bugzilla – Bug 214
Sudo caches credentials after unauthorized use
Last modified: 2007-07-20 07:38:00 MDT
Consider user Jon who is not in the sudoers file. - Jon attempts to run a command under sudo. He supplies his correct password. Since he is not in the sudoers file, "this incident will be reported" - In a short time, root adds Jon to /etc/sudoers. - Jon runs sudo again, but sudo does not ask for his credentials this time (because the cache timeout has not expired since the last time). Why does sudo cache the "valid" credentials of a non-authorized user in this case? I don't think that this could be exploited as a security bug, but it still feels wrong. Additional note: current version is 1.6.8p7 (Debian Sarge version 1.6.8p7-1.4)
Sudo tests user authentication and sudoers permissions separately. This is not a security issue, though I can see how it might be surprising.
Fixed in 1.6.9