Minicom Capture-file Group Ownership Vulnerability

BID:1599

Info

Minicom Capture-file Group Ownership Vulnerability

Bugtraq ID: 1599
Class: Access Validation Error
CVE:
Remote: No
Local: Yes
Published: Aug 19 2000 12:00AM
Updated: Aug 19 2000 12:00AM
Credit: First posted to Bugtraq by Michal Zalewski <[email protected]> on August 19, 2000.
Vulnerable: Jukka Lahtinen Minicom 1.83.1
Jukka Lahtinen Minicom 1.83 .0
+ Redhat Linux 6.2 i386
+ Redhat Linux 6.1 i386
Jukka Lahtinen Minicom 1.82.1
Jukka Lahtinen Minicom 1.82 .0
+ Slackware Linux 7.0
Not Vulnerable: Mandriva Linux Mandrake 7.1
Jukka Lahtinen Minicom 1.81.1
+ SuSE Linux 6.4
+ SuSE Linux 6.3
+ SuSE Linux 6.2
+ SuSE Linux 6.1
+ SuSE Linux 6.0
+ SuSE Linux 5.3
Debian Linux 2.3 sparc
Debian Linux 2.3 powerpc
Debian Linux 2.3 alpha
Debian Linux 2.3
Debian Linux 2.2 pre potato
Debian Linux 2.2 sparc
Debian Linux 2.2 powerpc
Debian Linux 2.2 arm
Debian Linux 2.2 alpha
Debian Linux 2.2
Debian Linux 2.1 sparc
Debian Linux 2.1 alpha
Debian Linux 2.1 68k
Debian Linux 2.1
Debian Linux 2.0 r5
Debian Linux 2.0 r2
Debian Linux 2.0

Discussion

Minicom Capture-file Group Ownership Vulnerability

Minicom is a unix terminal program often used for communication between computers with modems. It is often installed setgid uucp, as this access is required for regular users to use certain devices on the system. Through specifying a capture-file on the command line, a file can be created with effective gid uucp and thus owned by gid uucp. Where this is a serious concern is on systems using uucp -- critical files writeable by group uucp can be overwritten by exploiting this vulnerability leading to other problems.

Note: One of the versions listed as vulnerable (1.83.1) has been reported as not being vulnerable as a FreeBSD port.

Exploit / POC

Minicom Capture-file Group Ownership Vulnerability

Taken from Michal Zalewski's original Bugtraq Post:

> @(#)Minicom V1.83.0 (compiled Mar 7 2000)(c) Miquel van Smoorenburg
>
> [lcamtuf@nimue lcamtuf]$ minicom -C foo
> minicom: there is no global configuration file /etc/minirc.dfl
> Ask your sysadm to create one (with minicom -s).
>
> [lcamtuf@nimue lcamtuf]$ ls -l foo
> -rw-rw-r-- 1 lcamtuf uucp 0 Aug 18 12:21 foo
> ^^ ^^^^
>
> Any file can be created anywhere with uucp privledges - it will follow
> symlinks. Not nice on systems running uucp services.
>

Solution / Fix

Minicom Capture-file Group Ownership Vulnerability

Solution:
Currently the SecurityFocus staff are not ware 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].

References

Minicom Capture-file Group Ownership Vulnerability

References:
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