Vulnerability Note VU#841742

Apple Mac OS X Point-to-Point Protocol daemon (pppd) contains format string vulnerability

Original Release date: 26 Feb 2004 | Last revised: 26 Feb 2004

Overview

Apple Mac OS X Point-to-Point Protocol daemon contains a format string vulnerability in the handling of invalid command line arguments.

Description

The Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) provides a method for transmitting datagrams over serial point-to-point links. There is a format string vulnerability in the Mac OS X Point-to-Point Protocol daemon (pppd). When pppd receives an invalid command line argument, this argument is passed to the fslprintf() function. This function accepts input without properly specifying a format string.

According to @stake:

    The vulnerability is in a function specific to pppd that does not allow for traditional exploitation (arbitrary data written to arbitrary memory locations) via %n. However, it is possible to read arbitrary data out of pppd's process. Under certain circumstances, it is also possible to 'steal' PAP/CHAP authentication credentials.

Impact

The complete impact of this vulnerability is not yet known. However, exploitation may lead to the ability to read arbitrary data out of pppd's process. This data may contain CHAP or PAP authentication credentials.

Solution

Apply Patch
Apple has released a patch to address this vulnerability. For further details, please see the Apple Security Advisory (Security Update 2004-02-23).

Systems Affected (Learn More)

VendorStatusDate NotifiedDate Updated
Apple Computer Inc.Affected-25 Feb 2004
If you are a vendor and your product is affected, let us know.

CVSS Metrics (Learn More)

Group Score Vector
Base N/A N/A
Temporal N/A N/A
Environmental N/A N/A

References

Credit

This vulnerability was reported by Dave G. of @stake and Justin Tibbs of Secure Network Operations (SRT).

This document was written by Damon Morda.

Other Information

  • CVE IDs: CAN-2004-0165
  • Date Public: 24 Feb 2004
  • Date First Published: 26 Feb 2004
  • Date Last Updated: 26 Feb 2004
  • Severity Metric: 3.90
  • Document Revision: 12

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