Vulnerability Note VU#503030

Gaim fails to properly parse cookies in Yahoo web connections

Overview

There is a buffer overflow vulnerability in the way Gaim parses cookies for Yahoo web connections.

I. Description

Gaim is a multi-protocol instant messenger available for a number of operating systems. It supports a variety of instant messaging protocols, including the Yahoo Messenger (YMSG) protocol. There is a buffer overflow vulnerability in the yahoo_web_pending() function. This function is responsible for parsing cookies in HTTP reply headers for Yahoo web connections. When parsing the HTTP reply header, the first 1024 bytes of cookie data is copied into a 256 byte buffer without performing adequate bounds checking.

II. Impact

An unauthenticated, remote attacker could potentially execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the vulnerable process.

III. Solution

Upgrade

Upgrade to Gaim version 0.76 or later.

Systems Affected

Vendor	Status	Date Notified	Date Updated
Gaim	Vulnerable	6-May-2004

References

http://security.e-matters.de/advisories/012004.html
http://www.debian.org/security/2004/dsa-434
http://distro.conectiva.com.br/atualizacoes/?id=a&anuncio=000813
http://www.secunia.com/advisories/10705/

Credit

This vulnerability was reported by Stefan Esser of e-matters.

This document was written by Damon Morda.

Other Information

Date Public:	2004-01-26
Date First Published:	2004-05-06
Date Last Updated:	2004-05-06
CERT Advisory:
CVE-ID(s):	CAN-2004-0006
NVD-ID(s):	CAN-2004-0006
US-CERT Technical Alerts:
Metric:	5.25
Document Revision:	9

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