________________________________________________________________________________
Sun Microsystems, Inc. Security Bulletin
Bulletin Number: #00146
Date: July 15, 1997
Cross-Ref:
Title: Vulnerability in ping
________________________________________________________________________________
Permission is granted for the redistribution of this Bulletin, so long as
the Bulletin is not edited and is attributed to Sun Microsystems. Portions
may also be excerpted for re-use in other security advisories so long as
proper attribution is included.
Any other use of this information without the express written consent of
Sun Microsystems is prohibited. Sun Microsystems expressly disclaims all
liability for any misuse of this information by any third party.
________________________________________________________________________________
1. Bulletins Topics
Sun announces the release of patches for Solaris 2.5.1 and 2.5
(SunOS 5..5.1 and 5.5), which relate to a vulnerability in the
IP driver via the ping utility.
Sun estimates that the release of patches for Solaris 2.4 and 2.3
(SunOS 5.4 and 5.3) which relate to the same vulnerability will be
available within 8 weeks and 16 weeks respectively of the date
of this bulletin.
Sun strongly recommends that you install the patches listed in
section 5 immediately on systems running SunOS 5.5.1 and 5.5. Sun
also strongly recommends that you install the workaround listed in
section 4 immediately on systems running SunOS 5.4 or 5.3. Exploit
information is publicly available.
2. Who is Affected
Vulnerable: SunOS versions 5.5.1, 5.5.1_x86, 5.5, 5.5_x86,
5.4, 5.4_x86, and 5.3.
Not vulnerable: All other supported versions of SunOS
The vulnerability is fixed in the upcoming release of Solaris.
3. Understanding the Vulnerability
The ping program uses the ICMP protocol's ECHO_REQUEST datagram to elicit
an ICMP ECHO_RESPONSE from specified hosts. The vulnerability entails
sending a ping request to a multicast address through the loopback
interface. Part of the effect is that the system pings itself. However,
the incoming queue pointer is not yet initialized when the packet is
received causing the system to panic. The fix, as delivered via the
patches mentioned in section 5, is to initialize the queue pointer to
the correct queue at the time the packet is received.
4. Workaround
Sun recommends as a temporary workaround that all systems be protected
by executing the following command as root:
/usr/sbin/ndd -set /dev/ip ip_respond_to_echo_broadcast 0
Adding the above command to the file /etc/init.d/inetinit makes the
workaround effective across reboots.
5. List of Patches
The vulnerability in ping is fixed by the following patches:
OS version Patch ID
__________ ________
SunOS 5.5.1 103630-09
SunOS 5.5.1_x86 103631-09
SunOS 5.5 103169-12
SunOS 5.5_x86 103170-12
SunOS 5.4 101945-52 (to be released in 8 weeks)
SunOS 5.4_x86 101946-46 (to be released in 8 weeks)
SunOS 5.3 101318-89 (to be released in 16 weeks)
6. Checksum Table
The checksum table below shows the BSD checksums (SunOS 5.x: /usr/ucb/sum),
SVR4 checksums (SunOS 5.x: /usr/bin/sum), and the MD5 digital signatures
for the above-mentioned patches that are available from:
<URL:ftp://sunsolve1.sun.com/pub/patches/patches.html>
These checksums may not apply if you obtain patches from your answer
centers.
File Name BSD SVR4 MD5
_______________ _________ __________ ________________________________
103630-09.tar.Z 48744 656 23098 1311 BF33542DAD2C1455C6B94300E65B7447
103631-09.tar.Z 10984 573 53999 1145 B8CF75F23D243F9A8947A8FA05CC82BE
103169-12.tar.Z 62974 650 32631 1299 651D2F25A65FDA49FCED0C68CBD7EA32
103170-12.tar.Z 54167 568 15267 1135 9C31DCECA19A8AB621A11B13B4F80986
________________________________________________________________________________
Sun acknowledges, with thanks, Mark Henderson for providing the workaround
referenced in this bulletin.
________________________________________________________________________________
APPENDICES
A. Patches listed in this bulletin are available to all Sun customers via
World Wide Web at:
<URL:ftp://sunsolve1.sun.com/pub/patches/patches.html>
Customers with Sun support contracts can also obtain patches from local
Sun answer centers and SunSITEs worldwide.
B. Sun security bulletins are available via World Wide Web at:
<URL:http://sunsolve1.sun.com/sunsolve/secbulletins>
C. To report or inquire about a security problem with Sun software, contact
one or more of the following:
- Your local Sun answer centers
- Your representative computer security response team, such as CERT
- Sun Security Coordination Team. Send email to:
security-alert@sun.com
D. To receive information or subscribe to our CWS (Customer Warning System)
mailing list, send email to:
security-alert@sun.com
with a subject line (not body) containing one of the following commands:
Command Information Returned/Action Taken
_______ _________________________________
help An explanation of how to get information
key Sun Security Coordination Team's PGP key
list A list of current security topics
query [topic] The email is treated as an inquiry and is forwarded to
the Security Coordination Team
report [topic] The email is treated as a security report and is
forwarded to the Security Coordinaton Team. Please
encrypt sensitive mail using Sun Security Coordination
Team's PGP key
send topic A short status summary or bulletin. For example, to
retrieve a Security Bulletin #00138, supply the
following in the subject line (not body):
send #138
subscribe Sender is added to our mailing list. To subscribe,
supply the following in the subject line (not body):
subscribe cws your-email-address
Note that your-email-address should be substituted
by your email address.
unsubscribe Sender is removed from the CWS mailing list.
________________________________________________________________________________
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.2
iQCVAwUBM8vEybdzzzOFBFjJAQF5QAQAi7Ws5rvAhBikZ8RABSRnArcRBKrz06se
lDeWmCFV49RNyLT86UXqrW0mBAEs0ICRz5zBWQMlVOVYiJAcHWgD8U3VCGK6yP7f
iUw+K8xfNGKpSHnDeIMHhpWpRzgXCfvff+U0//Z3P2nILwnu/ydolkE43dR+8jfJ
aEogviJiK9g=
=oPMl
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----