XDMCP Infinite Loop Denial of Service Vulnerability

BID:1409

Info

XDMCP Infinite Loop Denial of Service Vulnerability

Bugtraq ID: 1409
Class: Failure to Handle Exceptional Conditions
CVE:
Remote: Yes
Local: No
Published: Jun 19 2000 12:00AM
Updated: Jun 19 2000 12:00AM
Credit: This vulnerability was posted to the Bugtraq mailing list on June 19, 2000 by Chris Evans <[email protected]>
Vulnerable: XFree86 X11R6 4.0
XFree86 X11R6 3.3.6
+ Debian Linux 2.2
+ Redhat Linux 6.2
XFree86 X11R6 3.3.5
- Redhat Linux 6.1 i386
XFree86 X11R6 3.3.4
XFree86 X11R6 3.3.3
Open Group X 11.0 R6.4
Open Group X 11.0 R6.3
Open Group X 11.0 R6.2
Open Group X 11.0 R6.1
Open Group X 11.0 R6
Not Vulnerable:

Discussion

XDMCP Infinite Loop Denial of Service Vulnerability

A programming flaw exists in OpenDis.c file of libX11 that could result in a denial of service against things listening to XDMCP, including xdm. By altering the contents of the server reply packet to a connection establishment request, it is possible to cause an infinite loop in the affected function. Doing this multiple times can cause a denial of service attack.

The flaw stems from the use of the dpy->resource_mask value, received from the network, to control a loop. By passing a mask value of 0, the loop will never end.

lib/X11/OpenDis.c, ~line 373

mask = dpy->resource_mask;
dpy->resource_shift = 0;
while (!(mask & 1)) {
dpy->resource_shift++;
mask = mask >> 1;
}

Exploit / POC

XDMCP Infinite Loop Denial of Service Vulnerability

See discussion for exploit information.

Solution / Fix

XDMCP Infinite Loop Denial of Service Vulnerability

Solution:
Currently the SecurityFocus staff are not aware of any vendor supplied patches for this issue. If you feel we are in error or are aware of more recent information, please mail us at: [email protected].

Altering the code in OpenDis.c to check for mask being 0 will eliminate this problem. Prefacing the while() loop with a check for mask being 0 is one way to do this, as is adding a check in the while loop for values of mask == 0.

References

XDMCP Infinite Loop Denial of Service Vulnerability

References:
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