Secunia Research: GNU Enscript "setfilename" Special Escape Buffer Overflow
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Secunia Research 22/10/2008
- GNU Enscript "setfilename" Special Escape Buffer Overflow -
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Table of Contents
Affected Software....................................................1
Severity.............................................................2
Vendor's Description of Software.....................................3
Description of Vulnerability.........................................4
Solution.............................................................5
Time Table...........................................................6
Credits..............................................................7
References...........................................................8
About Secunia........................................................9
Verification........................................................10
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1) Affected Software
* GNU Enscript 1.6.1
* GNU Enscript 1.6.4 (beta)
NOTE: Other versions may also be affected.
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2) Severity
Rating: Moderately Critical
Impact: System compromise
Where: Remote
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3) Vendor's Description of Software
"GNU Enscript is a free replacement for the Adobe's enscript program.
Enscript converts ASCII files to PostScript and spools generated
PostScript output to the specified printer or leaves it to file.
Enscript can be easily extended to handle different output media and
it has many options that can be used to customize printouts."
Product Link:
http://www.codento.com/people/mtr/genscript/
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4) Description of Vulnerability
Secunia Research has discovered a vulnerability in GNU Enscript, which
can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a vulnerable system.
The vulnerability is caused due to a boundary error within the
"read_special_escape()" function in src/psgen.c. This can be exploited
to cause a stack-based buffer overflow by tricking the user into
converting a malicious file.
Successful exploitation allows execution of arbitrary code, but
requires that special escapes processing is enabled with the "-e"
option.
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5) Solution
Do not convert untrusted files.
Various Linux vendors will issue patched versions soon.
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6) Time Table
08/10/2008 - vendor-sec contacted.
08/10/2008 - vendor-sec replied.
13/10/2008 - Red Hat asks for additional information.
14/10/2008 - Reply sent to Red Hat.
22/10/2008 - Public disclosure.
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7) Credits
Discovered by Ulf Harnhammar, Secunia Research.
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8) References
The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) project has assigned
CVE-2008-3863 for the vulnerability.
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9) About Secunia
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10) Verification
Please verify this advisory by visiting the Secunia website:
http://secunia.com/secunia_research/2008-41/
Complete list of vulnerability reports published by Secunia Research:
http://secunia.com/secunia_research/
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