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=         Security Objectives Advisory (SECOBJADV-2008-05)           =
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Veritas Storage Foundation Arbitrary File Read Vulnerability

http://www.security-objectives.com/advisories/SECOBJSADV-2008-05.txt

AFFECTED: Veritas Storage Foundation 5.0

PLATFORM: Solaris, Linux, AIX, HP-UX

CLASSIFICATION: Improper Ownership Management (CWE-282)

RESEARCHER: Derek Callaway

IMPACT: Arbitrary File Read

SEVERITY: Medium

DIFFICULTY: Trivial

REFERENCES: CVE-2008-4638, SYM08-018, BID 31679


BACKGROUND

Veritas Storage Foundation 5.0 from Symantec provides a complete 
solution for heterogeneous online storage management. Based on the 
industry-leading Veritas Volume Manager and Veritas File System, it 
provides a standard set of integrated tools to centrally manage 
explosive data growth, maximize storage hardware investments, provide 
data protection and adapt to changing business requirements.

SUMMARY

VxFS is an extent based, journaling filesystem. It implements a
"Quick I/O for Databases" feature; qioadmin is the setuid root
administration utility for this functionality. When given an arbitrary
filename, it will write the file's contents to the standard error stream.

ANALYSIS

qioadmin will write arbitrary files (including /etc/shadow) to stderr. 
Each line will be prepended with a custom error message followed by file
contents. Clearly, this can lead to privilege escalation by cracking the 
password ciphertext for the "superuser" or root account.

WORKAROUND

Remove the set-uid bit from the qioadmin binary.

chmod u-s /opt/VRTS/bin/qioadmin

VENDOR RESPONSE

Symantec included a fix for this problem in the recent maintenance 
release Veritas Software File System 5.0 MP3.

DISCLOSURE TIMELINE

11-Aug-2008 Discovery of Vulnerability
18-Aug-2008 Developed Proof-of-Concept
21-Aug-2008 Reported to Vendor
20-Oct-2008 Maintenance Release
22-Oct-2008 Published Advisory

ABOUT SECURITY OBJECTIVES

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corporation which operates in the area of application assurance software. 
Security Objectives employs methods that are centered on software 
comprehension, therefore a more in-depth contextual understanding of the 
application is developed.

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