FreeBSD AIO Library Cross Process Memory Write Vulnerability

BID:3661

Info

FreeBSD AIO Library Cross Process Memory Write Vulnerability

Bugtraq ID: 3661
Class: Race Condition Error
CVE:
Remote: No
Local: Yes
Published: Dec 10 2001 12:00AM
Updated: Dec 10 2001 12:00AM
Credit: Discovered by David Rufino <[email protected]> and posted on the BugTraq mailing list on December 10, 2001.
Vulnerable: FreeBSD FreeBSD 4.4
Not Vulnerable:

Discussion

FreeBSD AIO Library Cross Process Memory Write Vulnerability

aio.h is a library implementing the POSIX standard for asynchronous I/O. Support for AIO may be enabled in FreeBSD by compiling the kernel with the VFS_AIO option. This option is not enabled in the default kernel configuration.

Under some circumstances, pending reads from an input socket may persist through a call to execve. Eventually the read will continue, and write to the memory space of the new process.

If a local user is able to create and execute a malicious program calling a suid program, it may be possible to overwrite arbitrary memory locations in the suid process with arbitrary data. This could immediately lead to escalated privileges.

Exploit / POC

FreeBSD AIO Library Cross Process Memory Write Vulnerability

An exploit has been provided by David Rufino <[email protected]>.

Solution / Fix

FreeBSD AIO Library Cross Process Memory Write Vulnerability

Solution:
This vulnerability only exists if VFS_AIO is enabled in the FreeBSD kernel. This is not enabled by default.

David Rufino <[email protected]> has provided a patch to limit AIO use to the root user, which is available at:

http://elysium.soniq.net/dr/tao/patch-01

References

FreeBSD AIO Library Cross Process Memory Write Vulnerability

References:

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