-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- NetBSD Security Advisory 2001-009 ================================= Topic: Race condition between sugid-exec and ptrace(2) Version: All official releases up to and including 1.5 Severity: Local user may gain superuser privileges Fixed: NetBSD-current: June 15, 2001 NetBSD-1.5 branch: June 17, 2001 (1.5.1 includes the fix) NetBSD-1.4 branch: July 19, 2001 Abstract ======== A race condition between the setuid/setgid handling in the execve(2) system call and the ptrace(2) system call can allow a local user to cause a setuid-root executable to execute arbitrary code as the superuser. Technical Details ================= The execve(2) system call causes a process to begin execution of a new program image. This system call has a facility known as sugid, which allows certain programs to run with the user and/or group ID indicated by the file system permissions. This facility is used by, e.g. the su(1) program to allow certain users to gain superuser privileges. Once a process uses the sugid facility, it is marked as having done so, in order for other kernel facilities to make decisions based on this information. The ptrace(2) system call is a debugging facility. It provides the means for debuggers, such as gdb(1), to access the memory and registers of another process. The kernel allows a process to ptrace(2) another process only if they are owned by the same user ID, or if the tracing process has superuser privileges. If a process was exec'd using sugid, tracing of that process is disallowed unless done by the superuser. The execve(2) code contains a check to skip sugid processing if a process is currently being traced by ptrace(2). However, in vulnerable systems, two problems exist: * The check for a traced process in the sugid-exec code is performed too early. The check is made before the new executable image is opened, which may block. * The marking of a process as sugid happens too late. The process is marked as sugid after a call which allocates memory. The memory allocation may block. While the process exec'ing the new program image is asleep in either of these two places, another process owned by the same user can ptrace(2) the process. Once attached to the sugid process, the attacker can modify the sugid process's memory image and modify the program counter register, allowing the attacker to execute arbitrary code. Solutions and Workarounds ========================= Kernel sources must be updated and a new kernel built and installed. The instructions for updating your kernel sources depend upon which particular NetBSD release you are running. * NetBSD-current: Systems running NetBSD-current dated from before 2001-06-15 should be upgraded to NetBSD-current dated 2001-06-15 or later. The following source directories need to be updated from the netbsd-current CVS branch (aka HEAD): src/sys/compat/netbsd32 src/sys/kern Alternatively, apply the following patch (with potential offset differences): ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/security/patches/SA2001-009-ptrace-1.5.patch * NetBSD 1.5: Systems running NetBSD 1.5 dated from before 2001-06-17 should be upgraded from NetBSD 1.5 sources dated 2001-06-17 or later. The following source directories need to be updated from the netbsd-1-5 CVS branch: src/sys/compat/netbsd32 src/sys/kern Alternatively, apply the following patch (with potential offset differences): ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/security/patches/SA2001-009-ptrace-1.5.patch NetBSD 1.5.1 is not vulnerable. * NetBSD 1.4, 1.4.1, 1.4.2, 1.4.3: It is believed the 1.4 versions are vulnerable to this issue, but a working exploit could not be produced. The following is recommended action for 1.4 systems. Systems running NetBSD 1.4 dated from before 2001-07-19 should be upgraded from NetBSD 1.4 sources dated 2001-07-19 or later. The following source directory needs to be updated from the netbsd-1-4 CVS branch: src/sys/kern Alternatively, apply the following patch (with potential offset differences): ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/security/patches/SA2001-009-ptrace-1.4.patch Once the kernel sources have been updated, rebuild the kernel, install it, and reboot. For more information on how to do this, see: http://www.netbsd.org/Documentation/kernel/#how_to_build_a_kernel Thanks To ========= Georgi Guninski for pointing out that the problem existed on the Bugtraq mailing list. Artur Grabowski for some initial discussion about the problem. Jason R. Thorpe for investigating and fixing the problem. Bill Sommerfeld for additional discussion and code review. Revision History ================ 2001-07-20 Initial revision. 2001-07-27 Update link to kernel build instructions. More Information ================ An up-to-date PGP signed copy of this release will be maintained at ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/security/advisories/NetBSD-SA2001-009.txt.asc Information about NetBSD and NetBSD security can be found at http://www.NetBSD.ORG/ and http://www.NetBSD.ORG/Security/. Copyright 2001, The NetBSD Foundation, Inc. All Rights Reserved. $NetBSD: NetBSD-SA2001-009.txt,v 1.10 2001/07/26 23:39:42 lukem Exp $ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (NetBSD) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iQCVAwUBO2CqNT5Ru2/4N2IFAQGN8QP/SjruJJAhbhrCP1pYRKlS+3bB7o4yYu8e XudqdW8lMp0fsDdgbZO+jPGRD8aQg4MkNPvQm1DF+tnttzYhzf7381vlswD0Aefk xXoLgy5sbyhbHwunzj2F268SJHRcsBivY1WSXlhn1gEr3N+bbL+YDFTw/xiD/7kR KHABlKoUiOI= =IHWm -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----