CVE-2020-15238

Blueman is a GTK+ Bluetooth Manager. In Blueman before 2.1.4, the DhcpClient method of the D-Bus interface to blueman-mechanism is prone to an argument injection vulnerability. The impact highly depends on the system configuration. If Polkit-1 is disabled and for versions lower than 2.0.6, any local user can possibly exploit this. If Polkit-1 is enabled for version 2.0.6 and later, a possible attacker needs to be allowed to use the `org.blueman.dhcp.client` action. That is limited to users in the wheel group in the shipped rules file that do have the privileges anyway. On systems with ISC DHCP client (dhclient), attackers can pass arguments to `ip link` with the interface name that can e.g. be used to bring down an interface or add an arbitrary XDP/BPF program. On systems with dhcpcd and without ISC DHCP client, attackers can even run arbitrary scripts by passing `-c/path/to/script` as an interface name. Patches are included in 2.1.4 and master that change the DhcpClient D-Bus method(s) to accept BlueZ network object paths instead of network interface names. A backport to 2.0(.8) is also available. As a workaround, make sure that Polkit-1-support is enabled and limit privileges for the `org.blueman.dhcp.client` action to users that are able to run arbitrary commands as root anyway in /usr/share/polkit-1/rules.d/blueman.rules.

• CWE-74
• CWE-88

• http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/159740/Blueman-Local-Root-Privilege-Escalation.htmlExploit, Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry
• https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/blueman/+bug/1897287Exploit, Issue Tracking, Third Party Advisory
• https://github.com/blueman-project/blueman/releases/tag/2.1.4Third Party Advisory
• https://github.com/blueman-project/blueman/security/advisories/GHSA-jpc9-mgw6-2xwxThird Party Advisory
• https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2020/11/msg00005.htmlMailing List, Third Party Advisory
• https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/3F4EQU6CAPBKAPJ42HTB473NJLXFKB32/
• https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/6CFLMNHAHX5HPIKC5IG6F25HO5Z6RH2N/
• https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/W52NP7HRFTNAVNZLGKY4GR3JIZG5KKGS/
• https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202011-11Third Party Advisory
• https://www.debian.org/security/2020/dsa-4781Third Party Advisory
• http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/159740/Blueman-Local-Root-Privilege-Escalation.htmlExploit, Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry
• https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/blueman/+bug/1897287Exploit, Issue Tracking, Third Party Advisory
• https://github.com/blueman-project/blueman/releases/tag/2.1.4Third Party Advisory
• https://github.com/blueman-project/blueman/security/advisories/GHSA-jpc9-mgw6-2xwxThird Party Advisory
• https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2020/11/msg00005.htmlMailing List, Third Party Advisory
• https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/3F4EQU6CAPBKAPJ42HTB473NJLXFKB32/
• https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/6CFLMNHAHX5HPIKC5IG6F25HO5Z6RH2N/
• https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/W52NP7HRFTNAVNZLGKY4GR3JIZG5KKGS/
• https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202011-11Third Party Advisory
• https://www.debian.org/security/2020/dsa-4781Third Party Advisory

Published

Oct 27, 2020

Last Modified

Jun 17, 2026

Status

Modified