Solaris rpc.yppasswdd does not adequately check input allowing users to execute arbitrary code

Overview

A remotely exploitable buffer overflow exists in the ‘rpc.yppasswd’ service on Solaris 2.6, 2.7, and 2.8.

Description

Network Information Service (NIS) provides a simple network lookup service consisting of databases and processes. Its purpose is to provide information, that has to be known throughout the network, to all machines on the network. Information likely to be distributed by NIS might be login names and/or group information. A remotely exploitable buffer overflow exists in the ‘rpc.yppasswd’ service. This vulnerability could allow a remote intruder to execute arbitrary code with superuser privileges on an NIS master server. Note that only NIS master servers running the rpc.ypasswdd process are affected. For more information, please see this Sun Alert.

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Impact

Remote intruders can execute arbitrary code with super user privileges on a NIS master server.

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Solution

Contact vendor for patches.

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If you cannot immediately patch your systems, the following are suggested workarounds until a patch can be applied:

* Stop the rpc.yppasswd process. Note that by stopping this service, all users in the NIS domain will be unable to change their NIS password.
* Enable non-executable user program stacks in the kernel by adding the following lines to the NIS servers "/etc/system" file:

set noexec_user_stack = 1
set noexec_user_stack_log = 1

* Note that a subsequent reboot is required after this change. Additionally, you must restart the rpc.yppasswd process.  

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Vendor Information

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Sun Microsystems Inc. __ Affected

Updated: October 04, 2001

Status

Affected

Vendor Statement

Please see http://sunsolve.sun.com/pub-cgi/retrieve.pl?doc=salert%2F27486&zone_32=yppasswd%2A%20%202748%2A%20

Vendor Information

The vendor has not provided us with any further information regarding this vulnerability.

Addendum

The CERT/CC has no additional comments at this time.

If you have feedback, comments, or additional information about this vulnerability, please send us [email](<mailto:[email protected]?Subject=VU%23327281 Feedback>).

CVSS Metrics

Group	Score	Vector
Base
Temporal
Environmental

References

• http://sunsolve.sun.com/pub-cgi/retrieve.pl?doc=salert%2F27486&zone_32=yppasswd%2A%20%202748%2A%20
• <http://www.incidents.org/news/yppassword.php&gt;
• <http://archives.neohapsis.com/archives/bugtraq/2001-05/0273.html&gt;

Acknowledgements

This document was written by Ian A. Finlay.

Other Information

CVE IDs:	CVE-2001-0779
Severity Metric:	31.39 Date Public: