Overview
msgchk, a part of the MH mail system, reportedly suffers from a buffer overflow with respect to the name of the inbox to be checked for new mail. This overflow would allow the user of msgchk to execute arbitrary code.
Description
msgchk is the portion of the MH mail system that checks for new mail in the system spool folder. Its optional argument specifies the name of the inbox to be checked. Reportedly, the Tru64 Unix implementation in that an argument of 9000 characters or more will cause a buffer overflow, leading to execution of arbitrary code at the effective user id of the msgchk process. |
Impact
If msgchk runs without setuid root privileges, there is no vulnerability here. If msgchk runs with setuid privileges, the user may be able to gain elevated privileges. |
Solution
The CERT/CC is currently unaware of a practical solution to this problem. |
Remove setuid privileges from msgchk. |
Vendor Information
CVSS Metrics
| Group | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|
| Base | ||
| Temporal | ||
| Environmental |
References
Acknowledgements
This vulnerability was first reported by Seung Hyun Seo.
This document was written by Tim Shimeall and Ian A. Finlay.
Other Information
| CVE IDs: | CVE-2001-1093 |
| Severity Metric: | 3.00 |
| Date Public: | 2001-09-10 |
| Date First Published: | 2001-11-15 |
| Date Last Updated: | 2002-09-10 18:51 UTC |
| Document Revision: | 11 |