K16364 : GNU C Library (glibc) vulnerability CVE-2012-3406

Security Advisory Description

The vfprintf function in stdio-common/vfprintf.c in GNU C Library (aka glibc) 2.5, 2.12, and probably other versions does not “properly restrict the use of” the alloca function when allocating the SPECS array, which allows context-dependent attackers to bypass the FORTIFY_SOURCE format-string protection mechanism and cause a denial of service (crash) or possibly execute arbitrary code via a crafted format string using positional parameters and a large number of format specifiers, a different vulnerability than CVE-2012-3404 and CVE-2012-3405. (CVE-2012-3406)

Impact

An attacker with local access and knowledge of how to make the glibc function trigger an exploit may be able to cause a denial-of-service (DoS) or run arbitrary code.