J-069: SunOS LC_MESSAGES Environment Variable Vulnerability

PROBLEM:       A buffer overflow vulnerability has been identified in the 
               LC_MESSAGES Environment variable. 
PLATFORM:      SunOS 5.7, 5.7_x86, 5.6, 5.6_x86. 
DAMAGE:        A buffer overflow may be exploited to gain root access. 
SOLUTION:      Apply the available patches. 
VULNERABILITY  The risk is HIGH. Buffer overflow attacks are common and easy 
ASSESSMENT:    to execute. We are currently seeing numerous attacks on the 
               rpc.*** binaries (rpc.cmsd, rpc.ttdb) which depend on this 
               variable. 

[ Start Sun Microsystems Advisory ]

______________________________________________________________________________
                        Sun Microsystems, Inc. Security Bulletin

Bulletin Number:        #00189
Date:                   September 8, 1999
Cross-Ref:
Title:                  LC_MESSAGES
______________________________________________________________________________
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1. Bulletin Topics

   Sun announces the release of patches for Solaris(tm) 7 and 2.6 (SunOS(tm)
   5.7 and 5.6) which relate to a buffer overflow vulnerability involving the 
   LC_MESSAGES environment variable.

   Sun recommends that you install the patches listed in section 4
   immediately on systems running SunOS 5.7 and 5.6.

2. Who is Affected

   Vulnerable:          SunOS 5.7, 5.7_x86, 5.6, 5.6_x86.
   Not vulnerable:      All other supported versions of SunOS.

3. Understanding the Vulnerability

   In libc, the LC_MESSAGES environment variable affects the behavior of
   messaging functions. A vulnerability exists where a buffer overflow could
   be exploited to gain root access. The patches listed in this bulletin
   address both libc and the ufsrestore and rcp binaries which are statically
   linked against libc.

4. List of Patches
  
   The following patches are available in relation to the above problem.
  
   SunOS version                Patch ID
   _____________                _________


   5.7                          106541-07
   5.7 ufsrestore               106793-03
   5.7 rcp                      107972-01

   5.7_x86                      106542-07
   5.7_x86 ufsrestore           106794-03
   5.7_x86 rcp                  107973-01

   5.6                          105210-24
   5.6 ufsrestore               105722-03
   5.6 rcp                      107991-01

   5.6_x86                      105211-22
   5.6_x86 ufsrestore           105723-03
   5.6_x86 rcp                  107992-01

___________________________________________________________________________
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

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