-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- __________________________________________________________ The U.S. Department of Energy Computer Incident Advisory Capability ___ __ __ _ ___ / | /_\ / \___ __|__ / \ \___ __________________________________________________________ INFORMATION BULLETIN Buffer overflows in some POP servers July 14, 1998 21:00 GMT Number I-069 ______________________________________________________________________________ PROBLEM: A buffer overflow vulnerability has been identified in some POP servers based on QUALCOMM's qpopper. Qpopper is a Post Office Protocol (POP) server used for downloading Internet e-mail. PLATFORM: Versions of QUALCOMM qpopper prior to 2.5. Some Santa Cruz Operation, Inc. systems are vulnerable. DAMAGE: If exploited remote users may gain root access. SOLUTION: Apply patches or disable the POP server. ______________________________________________________________________________ VULNERABILITY Information about this vulnerability has been posted to various ASSESSMENT: mailing lists and newsgroups. It has been reported that this vulnerability has been exploited to gain root access. ______________________________________________________________________________ [ Start CERT Advisory ] CERT* Advisory CA-98.08 Original issue date: July 14, 1998 Topic: Buffer overflows in some POP servers - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The CERT Coordination Center has received reports of buffer overflows in some Post Office Protocol (POP) servers. For a list of vulnerable versions and platforms, please refer to Appendix A. For help in determining which version you are currently running, see Section III.A below. The CERT/CC team recommends that anyone running a vulnerable version of this software upgrade to the current vendor-recommended version. Until you can do so, we suggest disabling the POP server. We will update this advisory as we receive additional information. Please check our advisory files regularly for updates that relate to your site. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I. Description The CERT Coordination Center has received reports of buffer overflow vulnerabilities in some POP servers based on QUALCOMM's qpopper. Qpopper is a Post Office Protocol (POP) server used for downloading Internet e-mail. Information about this vulnerability has been posted to various mailing lists and newsgroups, and the CERT Coordination Center has received reports of incidents in which this vulnerability has been exploited to gain privileged access. II. Impact Remote users can gain privileged (root) access to systems running vulnerable versions of POP servers. III. Solution If you determine that your POP server is vulnerable (Sec. A), install a patch from your vendor. Until you can do so, we urge you to disable the POP server. A. Determine if your version of the POP server is vulnerable. To determine if a system is vulnerable, first telnet to port 110 on that host. If it is running a POP server, the banner will show the version. For example: % telnet yourmailhost.your.domain.com 110 Trying 123.123.123.123 Connected to mailhost +OK QPOP (version 2.4) at yourmailhost.your.domain.com starting In the above example, the POP server is QUALCOMM's QPopper, version 2.4, which is known to be a vulnerable version. Check Appendix A to see if your vendor has identified other POP server versions that are vulnerable. If you do not see your vendor's name, please contact the vendor directly. B. Install a patch for this problem. Appendix A contains input from vendors who have provided information for this advisory. C. Workaround If you are unable to upgrade to a version that is not vulnerable, we urge you to disable the POP server until you are able to address the problem. (This will, of course, mean that the functionality provided by the POP server will not be available.) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Appendix A - Vendor Information Below is a list of the vendors who have provided information for this advisory. We will update this appendix as we receive additional information. If you do not see your vendor's name, the CERT/CC did not hear from that vendor. Please contact the vendor directly. Data General - ------------- Data General does not ship qpopper, or any other POP client or server. Fujitsu - -------- The vulnerability described in this advisory is currently being reviewed. OpenBSD - -------- OpenBSD does not ship qpopper. QUALCOMM Incorporated - ---------------------- Versions of QUALCOMM qpopper prior to 2.5 are vulnerable. QUALCOMM recommends upgrading to the most recent version (currently Version 2.52). Patches are available from ftp://ftp.qualcomm.com/Eudora/servers/unix/popper Further details, questions and comments should be sent to . Santa Cruz Operation, Inc. - --------------------------- Some SCO Operating systems are vulnerable. Patches are currently being developed and should be available soon. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The CERT Coordination Center thanks Travis Mikalson at TerraNovaNet, Inc., for reporting the vulnerability, and Laurence Lundblade at QUALCOMM Incorporated for providing technical details and support in the development of the advisory. We also acknowledge other members of the Internet community who posted about this problem. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ [ End CERT Advisory ] ______________________________________________________________________________ CIAC wishes to acknowledge the contributions of CERT for the information contained in this bulletin. ______________________________________________________________________________ CIAC, the Computer Incident Advisory Capability, is the computer security incident response team for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the emergency backup response team for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). CIAC is located at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California. CIAC is also a founding member of FIRST, the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams, a global organization established to foster cooperation and coordination among computer security teams worldwide. 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World Wide Web: http://www.ciac.org/ (or http://ciac.llnl.gov -- they're the same machine) Anonymous FTP: ftp.ciac.org (or ciac.llnl.gov -- they're the same machine) Modem access: +1 (925) 423-4753 (28.8K baud) +1 (925) 423-3331 (28.8K baud) CIAC has several self-subscribing mailing lists for electronic publications: 1. CIAC-BULLETIN for Advisories, highest priority - time critical information and Bulletins, important computer security information; 2. SPI-ANNOUNCE for official news about Security Profile Inspector (SPI) software updates, new features, distribution and availability; 3. SPI-NOTES, for discussion of problems and solutions regarding the use of SPI products. Our mailing lists are managed by a public domain software package called Majordomo, which ignores E-mail header subject lines. 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Your agency's team will coordinate with CIAC. The Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) is a world-wide organization. A list of FIRST member organizations and their constituencies can be obtained via WWW at http://www.first.org/. This document was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor the University of California nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial products, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation or favoring by the United States Government or the University of California. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or the University of California, and shall not be used for advertising or product endorsement purposes. 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