Vulnerability Note VU#272296

AWStats fails to properly filter user-supplied input

Overview

A lack of input validation in AWStats may allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary commands.

I. Description

AWStats is a Perl CGI script that collects and graphically displays statistics from web, FTP, and mail servers. The configdir parameter, within the awstats.pl Perl script, is supplied user-controlled data and then passed as a parameter to the Perl routine open(). A lack of input validation on the configdir parameter may allow an attacker to compromise a vulnerable server. If an attacker supplies this parameter with arbitrary commands prefixed with the '|' character, those commands will be executed on the server.

Please note that according to public reports, this vulnerability is being actively exploited.

II. Impact

If a remote attacker supplies AWStats with specially crafted input, that attacker may be able to execute arbitrary commands with the privileges of the attacked server process, in most cases user nobody.

III. Solution

Upgrade

This issue has been corrected in AWStats version 6.3. Users are strongly encouraged to upgrade to this version.

Systems Affected

Vendor	Status	Date Updated
AWStats	Vulnerable	10-Feb-2005

References

http://awstats.sourceforge.net/docs/awstats_changelog.txt
http://www.idefense.com/application/poi/display?id=185&type=vulnerabilities
http://secunia.com/advisories/13893/

Credit

This vulnerability was reported by iDEFENSE.

This document was written by Jeff Gennari.

Other Information

Date Public	01/18/2005
Date First Published	02/10/2005 02:21:28 PM
Date Last Updated	02/21/2005
CERT Advisory
CVE Name	CAN-2005-0116
US-CERT Technical Alerts
Metric	13.39
Document Revision	44

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