FreeBSD Malformed ELF Image Denial of Service Vulnerability

BID:1625

Info

FreeBSD Malformed ELF Image Denial of Service Vulnerability

Bugtraq ID: 1625
Class: Input Validation Error
CVE:
Remote: No
Local: Yes
Published: Aug 28 2000 12:00AM
Updated: Aug 28 2000 12:00AM
Credit: This vulnerability was announced in a FreeBSD security advisory on August 28, 2000.
Vulnerable: FreeBSD FreeBSD 5.0 alpha
FreeBSD FreeBSD 5.0
FreeBSD FreeBSD 4.1
FreeBSD FreeBSD 4.0 alpha
FreeBSD FreeBSD 4.0
FreeBSD FreeBSD 3.5
FreeBSD FreeBSD 3.4
FreeBSD FreeBSD 3.3
FreeBSD FreeBSD 3.2
FreeBSD FreeBSD 3.1
FreeBSD FreeBSD 3.0
Not Vulnerable:

Discussion

FreeBSD Malformed ELF Image Denial of Service Vulnerability

A vulnerability exists in versions 3.x, and 4.x and 5.x prior to August 15, 2000, of FreeBSD. A failure of the ELF image activator to perform sufficient sanity checks on the ELF image header could result in local users being able to perform a denial of service attack against the machine.

By failing to handle conditions where the header had an invalid or truncated header, FreeBSD could suffer from a sign overflow bug. This in turn would cause the CPU to enter a long in-kernel loop. This can result in the machine being unavailable to remote and local users for 15 minutes or more.

Exploit / POC

FreeBSD Malformed ELF Image Denial of Service Vulnerability

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

Solution / Fix

FreeBSD Malformed ELF Image Denial of Service Vulnerability

Solution:
Patches are available for the 4.x and 5.x kernels. Versions of 4.x and 5.x downloaded after August 15, 2000 are not vulnerable. Users of 3.x versions of FreeBSD should upgrade to 4.x if possible.


FreeBSD FreeBSD 4.0 alpha

FreeBSD FreeBSD 4.0

FreeBSD FreeBSD 4.1

FreeBSD FreeBSD 5.0 alpha

FreeBSD FreeBSD 5.0

References

FreeBSD Malformed ELF Image Denial of Service Vulnerability

References:
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