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Vulnerability Note VU#356961

MIT Kerberos kadmind RPC library gssrpc__svcauth_gssapi() uninitialized pointer free vulnerability

Overview

The MIT Kerberos administration daemon (kadmind) can free an uninitialized pointer, which may allow a remote, unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service.

I. Description

The gssrpc__svcauth_gssapi() function used by the Kerberos administration daemon can free an uninitialized pointer when receiving a specially crafted RPC request. This vulnerability may cause memory corruption that could allow a remote, unauthenticated user to execute arbitrary code. According to MIT krb5 Security Advisory MITKRB5-SA-2007-004:

    The function gssrpc__svcauth_gssapi() in src/lib/rpc/svc_auth_gssapi.c declares an automatic variable "creds" of type auth_gssapi_creds. This type includes a gss_buffer_desc (which includes a pointer to void used as a pointer to a buffer of bytes). If gssrpc__svcauth_gssapi() receives an RPC credential with a length of zero, it jumps to the label "error", which executes some cleanup code. At this point, the gss_buffer_desc in "creds" is not yet initialized, and the cleanup code calls xdr_free() on "creds", which then attempts to free the memory pointed to by the uninitialized "value" member of the gss_buffer_desc.

    Exploitation of freeing of invalid pointers is believed to be difficult, and depends on a variety of factors specific to a given malloc implementation.

Note that this issue affects all releases of MIT krb5 up to and including krb5-1.6.1. MIT has been provided with proof-of-concept exploit code that causes a denial of service, but it's not clear whether the exploit code is publicly available yet.

This vulnerability occurred as a result of failing to comply with rule EXP33-C of the CERT C Programming Language Secure Coding Standard.

II. Impact

A remote, unauthenticated user may be able to execute arbitrary code on an affected system or cause the affected program to crash, resulting in a denial of service. Secondary impacts of code execution include complete compromise of the Kerberos key database.

III. Solution

Apply a patch

A patch can be obtained from MIT krb5 Security Advisory MITKRB5-SA-2007-004. MIT also states that this will be addressed in the upcoming krb5-1.6.2 and krb5-1.5.4 releases.

Systems Affected

VendorStatusDate NotifiedDate Updated
Apple Computer, Inc.Unknown18-Jun-2007
AttachmateWRQ, Inc.Unknown18-Jun-2007
Conectiva Inc.Unknown18-Jun-2007
Cray Inc.Unknown18-Jun-2007
CyberSafe, Inc.Not Vulnerable18-Jun-2007
Debian GNU/LinuxVulnerable30-Jul-2007
EMC CorporationUnknown18-Jun-2007
Engarde Secure LinuxUnknown18-Jun-2007
F5 Networks, Inc.Unknown18-Jun-2007
Fedora ProjectUnknown18-Jun-2007
FreeBSD, Inc.Unknown18-Jun-2007
FujitsuUnknown18-Jun-2007
Gentoo LinuxUnknown18-Jun-2007
Hewlett-Packard CompanyUnknown18-Jun-2007
HitachiUnknown18-Jun-2007
IBM CorporationUnknown18-Jun-2007
IBM Corporation (zseries)Unknown18-Jun-2007
IBM eServerUnknown18-Jun-2007
Immunix Communications, Inc.Unknown18-Jun-2007
Ingrian Networks, Inc.Unknown18-Jun-2007
Juniper Networks, Inc.Unknown26-Jun-2007
KTH Kerberos TeamUnknown18-Jun-2007
Mandriva, Inc.Unknown27-Jun-2007
Microsoft CorporationNot Vulnerable19-Jun-2007
MIT Kerberos Development TeamUnknown13-Jun-2007
MontaVista Software, Inc.Unknown18-Jun-2007
NEC CorporationUnknown18-Jun-2007
NetBSDUnknown18-Jun-2007
Network Appliance, Inc.Not Vulnerable27-Jun-2007
NokiaUnknown18-Jun-2007
Novell, Inc.Unknown18-Jun-2007
Openwall GNU/*/LinuxUnknown18-Jun-2007
QNX, Software Systems, Inc.Unknown18-Jun-2007
Red Hat, Inc.Vulnerable26-Jun-2007
Silicon Graphics, Inc.Unknown18-Jun-2007
Slackware Linux Inc.Unknown18-Jun-2007
Sony CorporationUnknown18-Jun-2007
Sun Microsystems, Inc.Vulnerable28-Jun-2007
SUSE LinuxUnknown18-Jun-2007
The SCO GroupUnknown18-Jun-2007
Trustix Secure LinuxUnknown18-Jun-2007
TurbolinuxUnknown18-Jun-2007
UbuntuUnknown27-Jun-2007
UnisysUnknown18-Jun-2007
Wind River Systems, Inc.Unknown18-Jun-2007

References

https://www.securecoding.cert.org/confluence/display/seccode/EXP33-C.+Do+not+reference+uninitialized+variables
http://web.mit.edu/kerberos/www/advisories/MITKRB5-SA-2007-004.txt
http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/document.do?assetkey=1-26-102914-1
http://secunia.com/advisories/25841/
http://secunia.com/advisories/25800/
http://secunia.com/advisories/26033/
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306172

Credit

Thanks to MIT for reporting this vulnerability, who in turn credit Wei Wang of McAfee Avert Labs.

This document was written by Will Dormann.

Other Information

Date Public:2007-06-26
Date First Published:2007-06-26
Date Last Updated:2007-08-08
CERT Advisory: 
CVE-ID(s):CVE-2007-2442
NVD-ID(s):CVE-2007-2442
US-CERT Technical Alerts: 
Metric:5.40
Document Revision:18

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