------------------------------------------------------------------------ LHa buffer overflows and directory traversal problems PROGRAM: LHa (Unix version) VENDOR: various people VULNERABLE VERSIONS: 1.14d to 1.14i 1.17 (Linux binary) possibly others IMMUNE VERSIONS: 1.14i with my patch applied 1.14h with my patch applied LHa 1.14: http://www2m.biglobe.ne.jp/~dolphin/lha/lha.htm http://www2m.biglobe.ne.jp/~dolphin/lha/prog/ LHa 1.17: http://www.infor.kanazawa-it.ac.jp/~ishii/lhaunix/ REFERENCES: CAN-2004-0234 (buffer overflows) CAN-2004-0235 (directory traversal) * DESCRIPTION * LHa is a console-based program for packing and unpacking LHarc archives. It is one of the packages in Red Hat Linux, Fedora Core, SUSE Linux, Debian GNU/Linux (non-free), Mandrakelinux, Slackware Linux, Gentoo Linux, Yellow Dog Linux, Conectiva Linux and ALT Linux. It is also included in the port/package collections for FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD. * OVERVIEW * LHa has two stack-based buffer overflows and two directory traversal problems. They can be abused by malicious people in many different ways: some mail virus scanners require LHa and run it automatically on attached files in e-mail messages. Some web applications allow uploading and unpacking of LHarc archives. Some people set up their web browsers to start LHa automatically after downloading an LHarc archive. Finally, social engineering is probably quite effective in this case. * TECHNICAL DETAILS * a) two stack-based buffer overflows The buffer overflows in LHa occur when testing (t) or extracting (x) archives where the archive contents have too long filenames or directory names. The cause of the problem is the function get_header() in header.c. This function first reads the lengths of filenames or directory names from the archive, and then it reads that many bytes to a char array (one for filenames and one for directory names) without checking if the array is big enough. By exploiting this bug, you get control over several registers including EIP, as you can see in this session capture: $ lha t buf_oflow.lha LHa: Error: Unknown information UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUUUUU Segmentation fault $ lha x buf_oflow.lha LHa: Error: Unknown information UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUUUUU Segmentation fault $ gdb lha GNU gdb Red Hat Linux (5.3post-0.20021129.18rh) Copyright 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc. GDB is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License, and you are welcome to change it and/or distribute copies of it under certain conditions. Type "show copying" to see the conditions. There is absolutely no warranty for GDB. Type "show warranty" for details. This GDB was configured as "i386-redhat-linux-gnu"... (gdb) r x buf_oflow.lha Starting program: /usr/bin/lha x buf_oflow.lha LHa: Error: Unknown information UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUUUUU Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault. 0x55555555 in ?? () (gdb) bt #0 0x55555555 in ?? () Cannot access memory at address 0x55555555 (gdb) i r eax 0x4001e4a0 1073865888 ecx 0xffffffe0 -32 edx 0x24 36 ebx 0x55555555 1431655765 esp 0xbfffdd50 0xbfffdd50 ebp 0x55555555 0x55555555 esi 0x55555555 1431655765 edi 0x55555555 1431655765 eip 0x55555555 0x55555555 eflags 0x210282 2163330 cs 0x23 35 ss 0x2b 43 ds 0x2b 43 es 0x2b 43 fs 0x0 0 gs 0x33 51 (gdb) r t buf_oflow.lha The program being debugged has been started already. Start it from the beginning? (y or n) y Starting program: /usr/bin/lha t buf_oflow.lha LHa: Error: Unknown information UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUUUUU Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault. 0x55555555 in ?? () (gdb) bt #0 0x55555555 in ?? () Cannot access memory at address 0x55555555 (gdb) i r eax 0x4001e4a0 1073865888 ecx 0xffffffe0 -32 edx 0x24 36 ebx 0x55555555 1431655765 esp 0xbfffe6d0 0xbfffe6d0 ebp 0x55555555 0x55555555 esi 0x55555555 1431655765 edi 0x55555555 1431655765 eip 0x55555555 0x55555555 eflags 0x210286 2163334 cs 0x23 35 ss 0x2b 43 ds 0x2b 43 es 0x2b 43 fs 0x0 0 gs 0x33 51 (gdb) q The program is running. Exit anyway? (y or n) y $ b) two directory traversal problems LHa has directory traversal problems, both with absolute paths and relative paths. There is no protection against relative paths at all, so you can simply use the lha binary to create an archive with paths like "../../../../../etc/cron.d/evil". There is some simple protection against absolute paths, namely skipping the first character if it is a slash, but again you can simply use the binary to create archives with paths like "//etc/cron.d/evil". * ATTACHED FILES * I have written a patch against version 1.14i that corrects all four problems. The patch is included as an attachment, together with some test archives. * TIMELINE * 18 Apr: contacted the vendor-sec list and the LHa 1.14 author 18 Apr: tried to contact the LHa 1.17 author with a web form and a guessed e-mail address which bounced 19 Apr: reply from the vendor-sec list with CVE references 30 Apr: Red Hat released their advisory 01 May: I release this advisory // Ulf Harnhammar Advogato diary :: http://www.advogato.org/person/metaur/ idiosynkratisk (Swedish electropop zine) :: http://idiosynkratisk.tk/ Debian Security Audit Project :: http://shellcode.org/Audit/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------