CVE-2014-6278

Publication date 30 September 2014

Last updated 3 October 2025

Ubuntu priority

Cvss 3 Severity Score

Description

GNU Bash through 4.3 bash43-026 does not properly parse function definitions in the values of environment variables, which allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary commands via a crafted environment, as demonstrated by vectors involving the ForceCommand feature in OpenSSH sshd, the mod_cgi and mod_cgid modules in the Apache HTTP Server, scripts executed by unspecified DHCP clients, and other situations in which setting the environment occurs across a privilege boundary from Bash execution. NOTE: this vulnerability exists because of an incomplete fix for CVE-2014-6271, CVE-2014-7169, and CVE-2014-6277.

Read the notes from the security team

Status

Show unmaintained releases

Package	Ubuntu Release	Status
bash	14.04 LTS trusty	Fixed 4.3-7ubuntu1.5
	12.04 LTS precise	Fixed 4.2-2ubuntu2.6
	10.04 LTS lucid	Fixed 4.1-2ubuntu3.5

Notes

mdeslaur

this issue is mitigated by Florian Weimer's prefix-suffix patch that is included in https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-2364-1 since bash parser vulnerabilities are now limited to specially named environment variables, and as such are no longer directly exposed to CGI scripts, SSH, etc. Once an upstream patch is made available, we will release bash updates, but we don't consider this to be a critical issue requiring immediate attention.

Severity score breakdown

Parameter	Value
Base score	8.8 · High
Attack vector	Network
Attack complexity	Low
Privileges required	None
User interaction	Required
Scope	Unchanged
Confidentiality	High
Integrity impact	High
Availability impact	High
Vector	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

References

Related Ubuntu Security Notices (USN)

USN-2380-1
Bash vulnerabilities
9 October 2014