__________________________________________________________ The U.S. Department of Energy Computer Incident Advisory Capability ___ __ __ _ ___ / | /_\ / \___ __|__ / \ \___ __________________________________________________________ INFORMATION BULLETIN FreeBSD Vulnerabilities in wu-ftpd and proftpd September 8, 1999 17:00 GMT Number J-068 Updated September 30, 1999 17: GMT _____________________________________________________________________________ PROBLEM: A vulnerability has been identified in both wu-ftpd and proftpd. PLATFORM: All systems running FreeBSD 3.2 (and earlier) or FreeBSD-Current before 1999/08/30. DAMAGE: A remote attacker can gain root access. SOLUTION: Disable the ftp daemon until you can upgrade your wu-ftpd or proftpd port. _____________________________________________________________________________ VULNERABILITY The risk is HIGH. Buffer overflow attacks are common and easy ASSESSMENT: to execute. _____________________________________________________________________________ [ Start FreeBSD Advisory ] ============================================================================= FreeBSD-SA-99:03 Security Advisory FreeBSD, Inc. Topic: Three ftp daemons in ports vulnerable to attack. Category: ports Module: wu-ftpd and proftpd Announced: 1999-09-05 Reissued: 1999-09-15 Affects: FreeBSD 3.2 (and earlier) FreeBSD-current and -stable before the correction date. Corrected: FreeBSD-3.3 RELEASE FreeBSD as of 1999/08/30 for wuftpd only (Note: there is only one ports tree which is shared with all FreeBSD branches, so if you are running a -stable version of FreeBSD you will also be impacted.) FreeBSD only: NO Bugtraq Id: proftpd: 612 Patches: NONE I. Background wuftpd, beroftpd and proftpd are all optional portions of the system designed to replace the stock ftpd on a FreeBSD system. They are written and maintained by third parties and are included in the FreeBSD ports collection. II. Problem Description There are different security problems which can lead to remote root access in these ports or packages. The standard ftp daemon which ships with FreeBSD is not impacted by either of these problems. III. Impact Remote users can gain root. IV. Workaround Disable the ftp daemon until you can upgrade your system, or use the stock ftpd that comes with FreeBSD. V. Solution Upgrade your wu-ftpd port to the version in the cvs repository after August 30, 1999. If you are not using the wu-ftpd port, then you should visit their web site and follow instructions there to patch your existing version. beroftpd, which was listed in the original wu-ftpd group's advisory as having a similar problem, has not been corrected as of September 15, 1999. It will not be in the 3.3 release. The port has been marked forbidden and will remain so until the security problems have been corrected. If you are running beroftpd you are encouraged to find if patches are available for it which corrects these problems before enabling it on your system. proftpd, which had different security problems, has not been updated to a safe version as of September 15, 1999. It will not be in the 3.3 release. It will not be in the 3.3 release. The port has been marked forbidden and will remain so until the security problems have been corrected. If you are running proftpd, you are encouraged to find out if there are patches which correct these problems before reenabling it on your system. The previous advisory suggested that any FreeBSD ports version of proftpd after August 30 had the security problems corrected. This has proven to not be the case and was the primary reason for reissuing this advisory. While reissuing the advisory, we added beroftpd since it shares a code history with wu-ftpd. The original advisory mistakenly asserted that proftpd also shared a code history with wuftpd, which is not the case. VI. Credits and Pointers The wu-ftpd advisory can be found at ftp://ftp.wu-ftpd.org/pub/wu-ftpd/2.5.0.Security.Update.asc ============================================================================= FreeBSD, Inc. Web Site: http://www.freebsd.org/ Confidential contacts: security-officer@freebsd.org Security notifications: security-notifications@freebsd.org Security public discussion: freebsd-security@freebsd.org PGP Key: ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/CERT/public_key.asc Notice: Any patches in this document may not apply cleanly due to modifications caused by digital signature or mailer software. Please reference the URL listed at the top of this document for original copies of all patches if necessary. ============================================================================= _____________________________________________________________________________ CIAC wishes to acknowledge the contributions of FreeBSD, Inc. for the information contained in this bulletin. _____________________________________________________________________________ CIAC, the Computer Incident Advisory Capability, is the computer security incident response team for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the emergency backup response team for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). CIAC is located at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California. CIAC is also a founding member of FIRST, the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams, a global organization established to foster cooperation and coordination among computer security teams worldwide. 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Your agency's team will coordinate with CIAC. The Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) is a world-wide organization. A list of FIRST member organizations and their constituencies can be obtained via WWW at http://www.first.org/. This document was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor the University of California nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial products, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation or favoring by the United States Government or the University of California. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or the University of California, and shall not be used for advertising or product endorsement purposes. LAST 10 CIAC BULLETINS ISSUED (Previous bulletins available from CIAC) J-058: Microsoft "Malformed HTTP Request Header" Vulnerability J-059: IBM AIX (pdnsd) Buffer Overflow Vulnerability J-060: Microsoft Office "ODBC" Vulnerabilities J-061: Lotus Notes Domino Server Denial of Service Attacks J-062: Netscape Enterprise and FastTrack Web Servers Buffer Overflow J-063: Domain Name System (DNS) Denial of Service (DoS) Attacks J-064: ActiveX Controls, Scriptlet.typlib & Eyedog, Vulnerabilities J-065: Wu-ftpd Vulnerability J-066: FreeBSD File Flags and Man-In-The-Middle Attack J-067: Profiling Across FreeBSD Exec Calls