search menu icon-carat-right cmu-wordmark

CERT Coordination Center

ncompress vulnerable to buffer overflow via long filename

Vulnerability Note VU#176363

Original Release Date: 2002-08-01 | Last Revised: 2002-08-10

Overview

Some versions of ncompress contain a buffer-overflow vulnerability.

Description

Versions 4.2.4 and earlier of ncompress do not properly handle filenames longer than 1023 characters.

Impact

By supplying long filenames to ncompress, an attacker may be able to gain local access to the server or force ncompress to execute arbitrary code.

Solution

Obtain a patch from your vendor.

Remove ncompress or remove execute permissions.

Vendor Information

176363
 

CVSS Metrics

Group Score Vector
Base
Temporal
Environmental

References

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Pavel Kankovsky for reporting this vulnerability.

This document was written by Shawn Van Ittersum.

Other Information

CVE IDs: None
Severity Metric: 0.92
Date Public: 2001-11-20
Date First Published: 2002-08-01
Date Last Updated: 2002-08-10 19:45 UTC
Document Revision: 11

Sponsored by CISA.