Vulnerability Assessment & Network Security Forums

If through a vulnerability assessment, a network security issue is detected for the vulnerability below, applying the appropriate security patches in a timely matter is very important. If you have detected that your system has already been compromised, following CERT's Network Security recovery document will assist with recommended steps for system recovery.

Home >> Browse Vulnerability Assessment Database >> Debian Local Security Checks >> [DSA066] DSA-066-1 cfingerd

Vulnerability Assessment Details

[DSA066] DSA-066-1 cfingerd

Vulnerability Assessment Summary
DSA-066-1 cfingerd

Detailed Explanation for this Vulnerability Assessment

Steven van Acker reported on bugtraq that the version of cfingerd (a
configurable finger daemon) as distributed in Debian GNU/Linux 2.2
suffers from two problems:

The code that reads configuration files (files in which $ commands are
expanded) copied its input to a buffer without checking for a buffer
overflow. When the ALLOW_LINE_PARSING feature is enabled that code
is used for reading users' files as well, so local users could exploit
this.

There also was a printf call in the same routine that did not protect
against printf format attacks.

Since ALLOW_LINE_PARSING is enabled in the default /etc/cfingerd.conf
local users could use this to gain root access.

This has been fixed in version 1.4.1-1.2, and we recommend that you upgrade
your cfingerd package immediately.

Solution : http://www.debian.org/security/2001/dsa-066
Network Security Threat Level: High

Networks Security ID: 2914, 2915

Vulnerability Assessment Copyright: This script is (C) 2005 Michel Arboi

Cables, Connectors