AIX techlibss Symbolic Link Vulnerability
BID:931
Info
AIX techlibss Symbolic Link Vulnerability
| Bugtraq ID: | 931 |
| Class: | Origin Validation Error |
| CVE: | |
| Remote: | No |
| Local: | Yes |
| Published: | Jan 10 2000 12:00AM |
| Updated: | Jan 10 2000 12:00AM |
| Credit: | First posted to Bugtraq by Klaus Kusche's <[email protected]> on January 10, 1999. |
| Vulnerable: |
IBM AIX 4.3.2 |
| Not Vulnerable: | |
Discussion
AIX techlibss Symbolic Link Vulnerability
When installing AIX updates from the monthly IBM support CDs, a binary called techlibss is run as root. "techlibss" creates log files in /tmp with known filenames, allowing an attacker to create malicious symbolic links in /tmp (with the known names). techlibss will follow these symbolic links, writing to wherever they point. Because of this and the fact that techlibss is run as root, it is possible to overwrite any file on the filesystem, if a symbolic link is exists, when techlibss is executed. Unfortunately there is no information at this time (January 17, 2000) about what the known filename(s) is/are for the file(s) created by techlibss in /tmp.
When installing AIX updates from the monthly IBM support CDs, a binary called techlibss is run as root. "techlibss" creates log files in /tmp with known filenames, allowing an attacker to create malicious symbolic links in /tmp (with the known names). techlibss will follow these symbolic links, writing to wherever they point. Because of this and the fact that techlibss is run as root, it is possible to overwrite any file on the filesystem, if a symbolic link is exists, when techlibss is executed. Unfortunately there is no information at this time (January 17, 2000) about what the known filename(s) is/are for the file(s) created by techlibss in /tmp.