__________________________________________________________ The U.S. Department of Energy Computer Incident Advisory Center ___ __ __ _ ___ / | /_\ / \___ __|__ / \ \___ __________________________________________________________ INFORMATION BULLETIN SGI IRIX nsd symlink Vulnerability [SGI Security Advisory 20020501-01-I] May 2, 2002 17:00 GMT Number M-076 ______________________________________________________________________________ PROBLEM: A vulnerability has been identified in the nsd process that may lead to a root compromise. PLATFORM: Systems running IRIX 6.5 to 6.5.10 The nsd daemon is installed by default on IRIX 6.5 systems. DAMAGE: The nsd dump file could be damaged or modified. If successfully exploited, this vulnerability may lead to a root compromise. SOLUTION: SGI recommends that you upgrade to IRIX 6.5.11 or later. ______________________________________________________________________________ VULNERABILITY The risk is LOW. To exploit this vulnerability, a local user ASSESSMENT: account is required. ______________________________________________________________________________ LINKS: CIAC BULLETIN: http://www.ciac.org/ciac/bulletins/m-076.shtml ORIGINAL BULLETIN: ftp://patches.sgi.com/support/free/security/advisories/20020501-01-I ______________________________________________________________________________ [***** Start SGI Security Advisory 20020501-01-I *****] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- _____________________________________________________________________________ SGI Security Advisory Title: IRIX nsd symlink vulnerability Number: 20020501-01-I Date: May 1, 2002 Reference: CAN-2002-0174 ______________________________________________________________________________ - ----------------------- - --- Issue Specifics --- - ----------------------- It has been reported that nsd was not checking the permissions and ownership of its dump file "/var/tmp/nsd.dump" prior to writing to it. If a user was to first create a symlink from another file pointing to /var/tmp/nsd.dump and then an already-privileged user sent a USR1 signal to the nsd process, the file could be damaged or modified. If successfully exploited, this could lead to a root compromise. SGI has investigated the issue and recommends the following steps for neutralizing the exposure. It is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that these measures be implemented on ALL vulnerable SGI systems. - -------------- - --- Impact --- - -------------- The nsd daemon is installed by default on IRIX 6.5 systems as part of eoe.sw.base. This vulnerability may not be exploited by a remote user, a local account is required. This vulnerability has been fixed in IRIX 6.5.11. This vulnerability was assigned the following CVE: http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CAN-2002-0174 - ---------------------------- - --- Temporary Workaround --- - ---------------------------- There is no effective workaround for this problem. SGI's recommendation is to upgrade to IRIX 6.5.11 or later. - ---------------- - --- Solution --- - ---------------- SGI has not provided patches for this vulnerability. Our recommendation is to upgrade to IRIX 6.5.11 or later. OS Version Vulnerable? Patch # Other Actions ---------- ----------- ------- ------------- IRIX 3.x unknown Note 1 IRIX 4.x unknown Note 1 IRIX 5.x unknown Note 1 IRIX 6.0.x unknown Note 1 IRIX 6.1 unknown Note 1 IRIX 6.2 unknown Note 1 IRIX 6.3 unknown Note 1 IRIX 6.4 unknown Note 1 IRIX 6.5 yes Notes 2 & 3 IRIX 6.5.1 yes Notes 2 & 3 IRIX 6.5.2 yes Notes 2 & 3 IRIX 6.5.3 yes Notes 2 & 3 IRIX 6.5.4 yes Notes 2 & 3 IRIX 6.5.5 yes Notes 2 & 3 IRIX 6.5.6 yes Notes 2 & 3 IRIX 6.5.7 yes Notes 2 & 3 IRIX 6.5.8 yes Notes 2 & 3 IRIX 6.5.9 yes Notes 2 & 3 IRIX 6.5.10 yes Notes 2 & 3 IRIX 6.5.11 no IRIX 6.5.12 no IRIX 6.5.13 no IRIX 6.5.14 no IRIX 6.5.15 no IRIX 6.5.16 no NOTES 1) This version of the IRIX operating has been retired. Upgrade to an actively supported IRIX operating system. See http://support.sgi.com/irix/news/index.html#policy for more information. 2) If you have not received an IRIX 6.5.X CD for IRIX 6.5, contact your SGI Support Provider or URL: http://support.sgi.com/irix/swupdates/ 3) Upgrade to IRIX 6.5.11 or a later version of IRIX. - ------------------------ - --- Acknowledgments ---- - ------------------------ SGI wishes to thank FIRST and the users of the Internet Community at large for their assistance in this matter. - ------------- - --- Links --- - ------------- SGI Security Advisories can be found at: http://www.sgi.com/support/security/ and ftp://patches.sgi.com/support/free/security/advisories/ SGI Security Patches can be found at: http://www.sgi.com/support/security/ and ftp://patches.sgi.com/support/free/security/patches/ SGI patches for IRIX can be found at the following patch servers: http://support.sgi.com/irix/ and ftp://patches.sgi.com/ SGI freeware updates for IRIX can be found at: http://freeware.sgi.com/ SGI fixes for SGI open sourced code can be found on: http://oss.sgi.com/projects/ SGI patches and RPMs for Linux can be found at: http://support.sgi.com/linux/ or http://oss.sgi.com/projects/sgilinux-combined/download/security-fixes/ SGI patches for Windows NT or 2000 can be found at: http://support.sgi.com/nt/ IRIX 5.2-6.4 Recommended/Required Patch Sets can be found at: http://support.sgi.com/irix/ and ftp://patches.sgi.com/support/patchset/ IRIX 6.5 Maintenance Release Streams can be found at: http://support.sgi.com/colls/patches/tools/relstream/index.html IRIX 6.5 Software Update CDs can be obtained from: http://support.sgi.com/irix/swupdates/ 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/ For security and patch management reasons, ftp.sgi.com (mirrors patches.sgi.com security FTP repository) lags behind and does not do a real-time update. - ----------------------------------------- - --- 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------ If there are general security questions on SGI systems, email can be sent to security-info@sgi.com. 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 iQCVAwUBPNBV9LQ4cFApAP75AQEp5QQAg24Cs2986D30JmD3Lg9pGSyaPcpIYW0M oZys9UNYCTFTWMgqOeykCqiPO9luKku5VzqvzzEM7Z4yIAOefMyNoW37yzKQk/cy 2Q01VVIfj/TAqG5W7GVOqNm8N+76Il52O2q/rT2NzuQCrX6qhaviDcr7po8y2JBB /i6Ss9uBCm8= =a8Hz -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- [***** End SGI Security Advisory 20020501-01-I *****] _______________________________________________________________________________ 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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