__________________________________________________________ The U.S. Department of Energy Computer Incident Advisory Center ___ __ __ _ ___ / | /_\ / \___ __|__ / \ \___ __________________________________________________________ INFORMATION BULLETIN SGI PCP Pmpost Symlink Vulnerability [SGI Security Advisory 20010601-01-A] June 25, 2001 21:00 GMT Number L-099 ______________________________________________________________________________ PROBLEM: The pmpost command of the Performance Co-Pilot (PCP) suite has a symlink handling vulnerability. If this runs in root context (i.e., setuid root), this could result in root compromise. PLATFORM: IRIX, Linux: PCP suite versions 2.1.11-5 and before. DAMAGE: Depending on configuration, this could result in root compromise. SOLUTION: Apply the described workaround. Pmpost appends the text message to the end of the PCP notice board file (IRIX: /var/adm/pcplog/NOTICES, Linux: /var/adm/pcp/NOTICES), so changing the permissions as described in the workaround will prevent non-root processes from appending to this file. ______________________________________________________________________________ VULNERABILITY MEDIUM to HIGH, depending on configuration. This can be a ASSESSMENT: remotely exploitable root compromise, if pmpost runs in root context. ______________________________________________________________________________ [****** Start SGI Advisory ******] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- ______________________________________________________________________________ SGI Security Advisory Title: PCP pmpost vulnerability Number: 20010601-01-A Date: June 19, 2001 ______________________________________________________________________________ SGI provides this information freely to the SGI user community for its consideration, interpretation, implementation and use. SGI recommends that this information be acted upon as soon as possible. SGI provides the information in this Security Advisory on an "AS-IS" basis only, and disclaims all warranties with respect thereto, express, implied or otherwise, including, without limitation, any warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. In no event shall SGI be liable for any loss of profits, loss of business, loss of data or for any indirect, special, exemplary, incidental or consequential damages of any kind arising from your use of, failure to use or improper use of any of the instructions or information in this Security Advisory. ______________________________________________________________________________ SGI acknowledges the PCP pmpost vulnerability reported by Paul Starzetz on BUGTRAQ http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/191831 and is currently investigating. No further information is available at this time. As further information becomes available, additional advisories will be issued. For the protection of all our customers, SGI does not disclose, discuss or confirm vulnerabilities until a full investigation has occurred and any necessary patch(es) or release streams are available for all vulnerable and supported Linux and IRIX operating systems. Until SGI has more definitive information to provide, customers are encouraged to assume all security vulnerabilities as exploitable and take appropriate steps according to local site security policies and requirements. To minimize the pmpost vulnerability until patches are made available run the following command as root: On IRIX: /sbin/chmod 555 /usr/pcp/bin/pmpost On Linux: chmod 555 /usr/share/pcp/bin/pmpost This workaround will disable the ability for non-root processes to append to /var/adm/pcplog/NOTICES (IRIX) or /var/log/pcp/NOTICES (Linux). As further information becomes available, additional advisories will be issued via the normal SGI security information distribution methods including the wiretap mailing list. - ----------------------------------------- - --- SGI Security Information/Contacts --- - ----------------------------------------- If there are questions about this document, email can be sent to security-info@sgi.com. ------oOo------ SGI provides security information and patches for use by the entire SGI community. This information is freely available to any person needing the information and is available via anonymous FTP and the Web. The primary SGI anonymous FTP site for security advisories and patches is patches.sgi.com (216.32.174.211). Security advisories and patches are located under the URL ftp://patches.sgi.com/support/free/security/ The SGI Security Headquarters Web page is accessible at the URL http://www.sgi.com/support/security/ For issues with the patches on the FTP sites, email can be sent to security-info@sgi.com. For assistance obtaining or working with security patches, please contact your SGI support provider. ------oOo------ SGI provides a free security mailing list service called wiretap and encourages interested parties to self-subscribe to receive (via email) all SGI Security Advisories when they are released. Subscribing to the mailing list can be done via the Web (http://www.sgi.com/support/security/wiretap.html) or by sending email to SGI as outlined below. % mail wiretap-request@sgi.com subscribe wiretap end ^d In the example above, is the email address that you wish the mailing list information sent to. The word end must be on a separate line to indicate the end of the body of the message. The control-d (^d) is used to indicate to the mail program that you are finished composing the mail message. ------oOo------ SGI provides a comprehensive customer World Wide Web site. This site is located at http://www.sgi.com/support/security/ . ------oOo------ For reporting *NEW* SGI security issues, email can be sent to security-alert@sgi.com or contact your SGI support provider. A support contract is not required for submitting a security report. ______________________________________________________________________________ This information is provided freely to all interested parties and may be redistributed provided that it is not altered in any way, SGI is appropriately credited and the document retains and includes its valid PGP signature. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBOy/Y+7Q4cFApAP75AQHXTgP+KEp/pjrLIrqeraSc0eXfpK85lKnGThuM 23WF3svxsvha0I+iII45tJGPbAyJ2Adjj4fFHUZekVzLytlFYNU9yGxtgkJ62qoI TssNEhs4ryFjTkg3hrnqbEamBAeFv5tP9B2LxXa/wK+oWNLCciP6JaeAU0oSjpSU bDu0DKnlPdg= =L7f8 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- [****** End SGI Advisory ******] _______________________________________________________________________________ CIAC wishes to acknowledge the contributions of SGI for the information contained in this bulletin. _______________________________________________________________________________ CIAC, the Computer Incident Advisory Center, 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. CIAC services are available to DOE, DOE contractors, and the NIH. CIAC can be contacted at: Voice: +1 925-422-8193 (7x24) FAX: +1 925-423-8002 STU-III: +1 925-423-2604 E-mail: ciac@ciac.org Previous CIAC notices, anti-virus software, and other information are available from the CIAC Computer Security Archive. World Wide Web: http://www.ciac.org/ Anonymous FTP: ftp.ciac.org PLEASE NOTE: Many users outside of the DOE, ESnet, and NIH computing communities receive CIAC bulletins. If you are not part of these communities, please contact your agency's response team to report incidents. 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. 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