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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/

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