Red Hat has recently disclosed several critical vulnerabilities within OpenPrinting CUPS , an open-source printing system widely used across modern Linux distributions, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

These vulnerabilities (CVE-2024-47076, CVE-2024-47175, CVE-2024-47176, and CVE-2024-47177) pose a significant security risk, particularly if exploited in combination.

Understanding the Vulnerabilities

OpenPrinting CUPS is essential for managing, discovering, and sharing printers across Linux systems. However, if these vulnerabilities are exploited together, attackers could potentially achieve remote code execution, leading to the theft of sensitive data or damage to critical production systems.

While Red Hat has rated these vulnerabilities with an “Important” severity impact, it is worth noting that systems are not vulnerable in their default configuration. Nevertheless, all versions of RHEL are affected, and the exact number of vulnerabilities is still under review as Red Hat coordinates with the upstream community and the researcher who discovered the flaws.

How to Detect Vulnerability

To determine if your system is vulnerable, Red Hat recommends checking the status of the cups-browsed service. You can do this with the following command:

$ sudo systemctl status cups-browsed

• If the result is “Active: inactive (dead)”, your system is not vulnerable.
• If the result is “running” or “enabled”, and the BrowseRemoteProtocols directive contains the value “cups” in the /etc/cups/cups-browsed.conf configuration file, then your system is vulnerable.

Mitigation Steps

For administrators looking to mitigate this risk, stopping the cups-browsed service is recommended. Use the following commands to do so:

1. Stop the service: $ sudo systemctl stop cups-browsed

2. Disable the service to prevent it from starting on reboot: $ sudo systemctl disable cups-browsed

Ongoing Efforts and Patches

Red Hat, along with the broader Linux community, is actively working on patches to address these vulnerabilities. In the meantime, administrators are advised to take the mitigation steps mentioned above to safeguard their systems.

For further details and updates, refer to the following resources:

• Red Hat Blog: Response to OpenPrinting CUPS Vulnerabilities
• Ubuntu Security Notice
• Debian Security Tracker: CVE-2024-47176

These vulnerabilities within OpenPrinting CUPS present a serious risk, especially for RHEL users. While Red Hat works on a permanent fix, taking immediate mitigation steps can help prevent potential exploitation and protect critical systems from attack.

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