__________________________________________________________ The U.S. Department of Energy Computer Incident Advisory Capability ___ __ __ _ ___ / | /_\ / \___ __|__ / \ \___ __________________________________________________________ INFORMATION BULLETIN Buffer Overflow in Sun Solstic AdminSuite Daemon sadmind December 30, 1999 20:00 GMT Number K-013 ______________________________________________________________________________ PROBLEM: A buffer overflow vulnerability has been identified in the AdminSuite Daemon sadmind. PLATFORM: SunOS 5.7, 5.7_x86, 5.6, 5.6_x86, 5.5.1, 5.5.1_x86, 5.5, 5.5_x86, and 5.4, 5.4_x86, and 5.3 with AdminSuite installed. DAMAGE: A buffer overflow could allow an intruder access to root. SOLUTION: Disable sadmind or apply newly released patches. See Sun's Advisory below for patch information. ______________________________________________________________________________ VULNERABILITY Risk is high. This vulnerability has been discussed on public ASSESSMENT: security forums and is being actively exploited. ______________________________________________________________________________ [ The CERT Advisory is followed by the update on December 29, 1999 from Sun Microsystems ] [ Start CERT's Advisory ] CERT Advisory CA-99-16 Buffer Overflow in Sun Solstice AdminSuite Daemon sadmind Original release date: December 14, 1999 Last revised: -- Source: CERT/CC A complete revision history is at the end of this file. Systems Affected * Systems that have sadmind installed I. Description The sadmind program is installed by default in Solaris 2.5, 2.6, and 7. In Solaris 2.3 and 2.4, sadmind may be installed if the Sun Solstice Adminsuite packages are installed. The sadmind program is installed in /usr/sbin. It can be used to coordinate distributed system administration operations remotely. The sadmind daemon is started automatically by the inetd daemon whenever a request to perform a system administration operation is received. All versions of sadmind are vulnerable to a buffer overflow that can overwrite the stack pointer within a running sadmind process. Since sadmind is installed as root, it is possible to execute arbitrary code with root privileges on a remote machine. This vulnerability has been discussed in public security forums and is actively being exploited by intruders. II. Impact A remote user may be able to execute arbitrary code with root privileges on systems running vulnerable versions of sadmind. III. Solution Disable sadmind Remove (or comment) the following line in /etc/inetd.conf: 100232/10 tli rpc/udp wait root /usr/sbin/sadmind sadmind Even though it will not defend against the attack discussed in this advisory, it is a good practice to set the security option used to authenticate requests to a STRONG level, for example: 100232/10 tli rpc/udp wait root /usr/sbin/sadmind sadmind -S 2 If you must use sadmind to perform system administration tasks, we urge you to use this setting. Appendix A contains information provided by vendors for this advisory. We will update the appendix as we receive or develop more information. If you do not see your vendor's name in Appendix A, the CERT/CC did not hear from that vendor. Please contact your vendor directly. Appendix A. Vendor Information Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems is currently working on patches to address the issue discussed in this advisory and recommends disabling sadmind. _________________________________________________________________ The CERT Coordination Center thanks Sun Microsystems for its help in providing information for this advisory. ______________________________________________________________________ This document is available from: http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-99-16-sadmind.html ______________________________________________________________________ [ Start Sun's Advisory ] ______________________________________________________________________________ Sun Microsystems, Inc. Security Bulletin Bulletin Number: #00191 Date: December 29, 1999 Cross-Ref: CERT CA-99-16 Title: sadmind ______________________________________________________________________________ The information contained in this Security Bulletin is provided "AS IS." Sun makes no warranties of any kind whatsoever with respect to the information contained in this Security Bulletin. ALL EXPRESS OR IMPLIED CONDITIONS, REPRESENTATIONS AND WARRANTIES, INCLUDING ANY WARRANTY OF NON-INFRINGEMENT OR IMPLIED WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, ARE HEREBY DISCLAIMED AND EXCLUDED TO THE EXTENT ALLOWED BY APPLICABLE LAW. IN NO EVENT WILL SUN MICROSYSTEMS, INC. BE LIABLE FOR ANY LOST REVENUE, PROFIT OR DATA, OR FOR DIRECT, SPECIAL, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, INCIDENTAL OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES HOWEVER CAUSED AND REGARDLESS OF ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS SECURITY BULLETIN, EVEN IF SUN MICROSYSTEMS, INC. HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. If any of the above provisions are held to be in violation of applicable law, void, or unenforceable in any jurisdiction, then such provisions are waived to the extent necessary for this disclaimer to be otherwise enforceable in such jurisdiction. ______________________________________________________________________________ 1. Bulletins Topics Sun announces the release of patches for Solaris(tm) 7, 2.6, 2.5.1, 2.5, 2.4, and 2.3 (SunOS(tm) 5.7, 5.6, 5.5.1, 5.5, 5.4 and 5.3), which relate to a vulnerability with sadmind. Sun recommends that you install the patches listed in section 4 immediately on systems running SunOS 5.7, 5.6, 5.5.1, and 5.5 and on systems with Solstice AdminSuite (AdminSuite) installed. If you have installed a version of AdminSuite prior to version 2.3, please upgrade to AdminSuite 2.3 before installing the AdminSuite patches listed in section 4. Sun also recommends that you: - disable sadmind if you do not use it by commenting the following line in /etc/inetd.conf: 100232/10 tli rpc/udp wait root /usr/sbin/sadmind sadmind - set the security level used to authenticate requests to STRONG as follows, if you use sadmind: 100232/10 tli rpc/udp wait root /usr/sbin/sadmind sadmind -S 2 The above changes to /etc/inetd.conf will take effect after inetd receives a hang-up signal. 2. Who is Affected Vulnerable: SunOS 5.7, 5.7_x86, 5.6, 5.6_x86, 5.5.1, 5.5.1_x86, 5.5, 5.5_x86, and 5.4, 5.4_x86, and 5.3 with AdminSuite installed Not vulnerable: All other supported versions of SunOS. 3. Understanding the Vulnerability The sadmind program is installed by default on SunOS 5.7, 5.6, 5.5.1, and 5.5. In SunOS 5.4 and 5.3, sadmind may be installed if the Solstice AdminSuite packages are installed. The sadmind program is installed in /usr/sbin. The program can be used to perform distributed system administration operations remotely. A buffer overflow vulnerability has been discovered in sadmind which may be exploited by a remote attacker to execute arbitrary instructions and gain root access. 4. List of Patches The following patches are available in relation to the above problem. OS Version Patch ID __________ _________ SunOS 5.7 108662-01 SunOS 5.7_x86 108663-01 SunOS 5.6 108660-01 SunOS 5.6_x86 108661-01 SunOS 5.5.1 108658-01 SunOS 5.5.1_x86 108659-01 SunOS 5.5 108656-01 SunOS 5.5_x86 108657-01 AdminSuite Version Patch ID __________________ ________ 2.3 104468-18 (see Note) 2.3_x86 104469-18 (see Note) Note: Install patch if AdminSuite is installed. AdminSuite may be installed on SunOS 5.7, 5.6, 5.5.1, 5.5, 5.4 or 5.3. ______________________________________________________________________________ Sun acknowledges, with thanks, Stanford University and the CERT Coordination Center for their assistance in this matter. ______________________________________________________________________________ APPENDICES A. Patches listed in this bulletin are available to all Sun customers at: http://sunsolve.sun.com/pub-cgi/show.pl?target=patches/patch- license&nav=pub-patches B. Checksums for the patches listed in this bulletin are available at: ftp://sunsolve.sun.com/pub/patches/CHECKSUMS C. Sun security bulletins are available at: http://sunsolve.sun.com/pub-cgi/secBulletin.pl D. Sun Security Coordination Team's PGP key is available at: http://sunsolve.sun.com/pgpkey.txt E. To report or inquire about a security problem with Sun software, contact one or more of the following: - Your local Sun answer centers - Your representative computer security response team, such as CERT - Sun Security Coordination Team. Send email to: security-alert@sun.com F. 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