Vulnerability Note VU#814627

Sendmail vulnerable to buffer overflow when DNS map is specified using TXT records

Overview

A remotely exploitable buffer overflow exists in Sendmail, versions 8.12.0 through 8.12.4. This vulnerability only exhibits itself if you have modified the configuration file to look up TXT records in DNS.

I. Description

The buffer overflow occurs in the portion of code that process responses from DNS servers. Please note that the Sendmail Consortium has indicated that this vulnerability is not present in the standard Sendmail distribution because the option that can trigger the exposure is not enabled. For more details, please see the Sendmail announcement.

II. Impact

A remote attacker may be able to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the Sendmail daemon, typically root. Note that there is no known exploit for this vulnerability.

III. Solution

Upgrade to Sendmail 8.12.5 or apply the appropriate vendor-supplied patch.

Systems Affected

Vendor	Status	Date Notified
Apple Computer Inc.	Vulnerable	20-Dec-2004
Sendmail	Vulnerable	28-Jun-2002
Sun Microsystems Inc.	Vulnerable	20-Dec-2004

References

http://www.sendmail.org/8.12.5.html
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/5122
http://secunia.com/advisories/13436/
http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/document.do?assetkey=1-26-57696-1

Credit

The CERT/CC thanks Eric Allman and Gregory Shapiro for helping us construct this document.

This document was written by Ian A Finlay and Jeffrey Havrilla.

Other Information

Date Public:	2002-06-25
Date First Published:	2002-06-28
Date Last Updated:	2004-12-20
CERT Advisory:
CVE-ID(s):	CVE-2002-0906
NVD-ID(s):	CVE-2002-0906
US-CERT Technical Alerts:
Metric:	28.35
Document Revision:	31

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