MTools MFormat Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

BID:9746

Info

MTools MFormat Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

Bugtraq ID: 9746
Class: Design Error
CVE:
Remote: No
Local: Yes
Published: Feb 25 2004 12:00AM
Updated: Feb 25 2004 12:00AM
Credit: Discovery of this issue is credited to Sebastian Krahmer.
Vulnerable: MTools MTools 3.9.9
+ Mandriva Linux Mandrake 9.2 amd64
+ Mandriva Linux Mandrake 9.2
+ S.u.S.E. Linux Personal 9.0 x86_64
+ S.u.S.E. Linux Personal 9.0
MTools MTools 3.9.8
+ Gentoo Linux 1.4 _rc3
+ Gentoo Linux 1.4 _rc2
+ Gentoo Linux 1.4 _rc1
+ Gentoo Linux 1.4
+ Redhat Linux 9.0 i386
MTools MTools 3.9.7
MTools MTools 3.9.6
MTools MTools 3.9.5
MTools MTools 3.9.4
MTools MTools 3.9.3
MTools MTools 3.9.2
MTools MTools 3.9.1
Not Vulnerable:

Discussion

MTools MFormat Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

It has been reported that mformat is prone to a privilege escalation vulnerability when installed as a setUID application. This issue is due to a design error allowing a user to create any arbitrary files as the root user.

A local attacker could exploit this issue by forcing the creation of sensitive system files that already exist. When the application formats the specified files, the target system file will be overwritten, destroying sensitive system data. Since the files that are given permissions 0666 and owned by root, the attacker may alter overwritten system configuration files, allowing for a escalation of privileges.

Exploit / POC

MTools MFormat Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

No exploit is required to leverage this issue. The following proof of concept exploit has been supplied by [email protected]:

Solution / Fix

MTools MFormat Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

Solution:
Mandrake has released advisory MDKSA-2004:016 dealing with this issue.

Fixes:


MTools MTools 3.9.9

References

MTools MFormat Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

References:
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