IM-Switch Insecure Temporary File Handling Symbolic Link Vulnerability

BID:10717

Info

IM-Switch Insecure Temporary File Handling Symbolic Link Vulnerability

Bugtraq ID: 10717
Class: Access Validation Error
CVE:
Remote: No
Local: Yes
Published: Jul 13 2004 12:00AM
Updated: Jul 13 2004 12:00AM
Credit: Discovery of this vulnerability is credited to SEKINE Tatsuo.
Vulnerable: Redhat Fedora Core2
Redhat Fedora Core1
im-switch im-switch
Not Vulnerable:

Discussion

IM-Switch Insecure Temporary File Handling Symbolic Link Vulnerability

It is reported that im-switch is prone to a local insecure temporary file handling symbolic link vulnerability. This issue is due to a design error that allows the application to insecurely write to a temporary file that is created with a predictable file name.

The im-switch utility will write to this temporary file before verifying its existence; this would facilitate a symbolic link attack.

An attacker may exploit this issue to corrupt arbitrary files. This corruption may potentially result in the elevation of privileges, or in a system wide denial of service.

Exploit / POC

IM-Switch Insecure Temporary File Handling Symbolic Link Vulnerability

The following example is available:

$ bash -c 'i=1;while [ $i -lt 65536 ]; do ln -s /etc/IMPORTANT_FILE
/tmp/imswitcher$i; let "i++"; done'

Solution / Fix

IM-Switch Insecure Temporary File Handling Symbolic Link Vulnerability

Solution:
It is reported that this vulnerability is addressed by the following package for RedHat Fedora Core 2:


Redhat Fedora Core2

References

IM-Switch Insecure Temporary File Handling Symbolic Link Vulnerability

References:

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