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______________________________________________________________________________
Silicon Graphics Inc. Security Advisory
Title: Performer API Search Tool 2.2 pfdispaly.cgi Vulnerability
Number: 19980401-01-P3018
Date: April 2, 1998
______________________________________________________________________________
Silicon Graphics provides this information freely to the SGI user community
for its consideration, interpretation, implementation and use. Silicon
Graphics recommends that this information be acted upon as soon as possible.
Silicon Graphics provides the information in this Security Advisory on
an "AS-IS" basis only, and disclaims all warranties with respect thereto,
express, implied or otherwise, including, without limitation, any warranty
of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. In no event shall
Silicon Graphics be liable for any loss of profits, loss of business, loss
of data or for any indirect, special, exemplary, incidental or consequential
damages of any kind arising from your use of, failure to use or improper
use of any of the instructions or information in this Security Advisory.
______________________________________________________________________________
- -----------------------
- --- Issue Specifics ---
- -----------------------
The IRIS Performer API Search Tool is a web based search tool that assists
in searching of man pages, documents, example code, and special items known as
classes, methods, tokens and samples. Once installed, it can be accessed
locally by
Unfortunately, a vulnerability in pfdispaly.cgi (sic) has been discovered
which could allow any user to view files on the vulnerable system with
privileges of the user "nobody".
Silicon Graphics Inc. has investigated the issue and recommends the
following steps for neutralizing the exposure. It is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
that these measures be implemented on ALL vulnerable SGI systems. This
issue will be corrected in future releases of IRIS Performer.
- --------------
- --- Impact ---
- --------------
The IRIS Performer API Search Tool software subsystem (performer_tools)
is loaded by default when installing the IRIX Performer 2.2 CD on IRIX
6.2, 6.3 and 6.4
For this particular vulnerability, a local account is not required and
can be exploited remotely.
This vulnerability can be utilized to view files on the local system with
the user privileges of "nobody".
This vulnerability has been publically discussed in Usenet newsgroups
and mailing lists.
- --------------------------
- --- Temporary Solution ---
- --------------------------
Although patches are available for this issue, it is realized that
there may be situations where installing the patches immediately may
not be possible.
The steps below can be used to remove the vulnerability by changing
the permissions of the vulnerable program.
1) Become the root user on the system.
% /bin/su -
Password:
#
2) Change the permissions on the vulnerable program.
# /bin/chmod 500 /var/www/cgi-bin/pfdispaly.cgi
************
*** NOTE ***
************
Removing the permissions from the vulnerable program will
prevent non-root users from accessing pfdispaly.cgi.
3) Verify the new permissions on the program.
# ls -al /var/www/cgi-bin/pfdispaly.cgi
-r-x------ 1 root sys 1393 Mar 17 17:00 pfdispaly.cgi
4) Return to previous level.
# exit
$
- ----------------
- --- Solution ---
- ----------------
OS Version Vulnerable? Patch # Other Actions
---------- ----------- ------- -------------
IRIX 3.x no
IRIX 4.x no
IRIX 5.0.x no
IRIX 5.1.x no
IRIX 5.2 no
IRIX 5.3 no
IRIX 6.0.x no
IRIX 6.1 no
IRIX 6.2 yes 3018
IRIX 6.3 yes 3018
IRIX 6.4 yes 3018
Patches are available via anonymous FTP and your service/support provider.
The SGI anonymous FTP site is sgigate.sgi.com (204.94.209.1) or its
mirror, ftp.sgi.com. Security information and patches can be found
in the ~ftp/security and ~ftp/patches directories, respectfully.
##### Patch File Checksums ####
The actual patch will be a tar file containing the following files:
Filename: README.patch.3018
Algorithm #1 (sum -r): 37955 11 README.patch.3018
Algorithm #2 (sum): 15455 11 README.patch.3018
MD5 checksum: 1169EB51D75E0794C64C2C1FD6211B69
Filename: patchSG0003018
Algorithm #1 (sum -r): 01679 2 patchSG0003018
Algorithm #2 (sum): 12876 2 patchSG0003018
MD5 checksum: BD16A53A0AE693D6E9E276EE066BDBC8
Filename: patchSG0003018.idb
Algorithm #1 (sum -r): 01339 2 patchSG0003018.idb
Algorithm #2 (sum): 251 2 patchSG0003018.idb
MD5 checksum: 1CB16E6A8C50BF17CD02A29C2E4D35EB
Filename: patchSG0003018.performer_tools_man
Algorithm #1 (sum -r): 10201 8 patchSG0003018.performer_tools_man
Algorithm #2 (sum): 3144 8 patchSG0003018.performer_tools_man
MD5 checksum: B6B3D90FAB9B5A342397C3E5AF5A8D29
Filename: patchSG0003018.performer_tools_sw
Algorithm #1 (sum -r): 48474 18 patchSG0003018.performer_tools_sw
Algorithm #2 (sum): 28176 18 patchSG0003018.performer_tools_sw
MD5 checksum: DF4E8ED8326A6A0B39F7B4D67E5FD71F
- ------------------------
- --- Acknowledgments ---
- ------------------------
Silicon Graphics wishes to thank the Internet community for their
assistance in this matter.
- -----------------------------------------------------------
- --- Silicon Graphics Inc. Security Information/Contacts ---
- -----------------------------------------------------------
If there are questions about this document, email can be sent to
cse-security-alert@sgi.com.
------oOo------
Silicon Graphics provides security information and patches for
use by the entire SGI community. This information is freely
available to any person needing the information and is available
via anonymous FTP and the Web.
The primary SGI anonymous FTP site for security information and patches
is sgigate.sgi.com (204.94.209.1). Security information and patches
are located under the directories ~ftp/security and ~ftp/patches,
respectively. The Silicon Graphics Security Headquarters Web page is
accessible at the URL http://www.sgi.com/Support/security/security.html.
For issues with the patches on the FTP sites, email can be sent to
cse-security-alert@sgi.com.
For assistance obtaining or working with security patches, please
contact your SGI support provider.
------oOo------
Silicon Graphics provides a free security mailing list service
called wiretap and encourages interested parties to self-subscribe
to receive (via email) all SGI Security Advisories when they are
released. Subscribing to the mailing list can be done via the Web
(http://www.sgi.com/Support/security/wiretap.html) or by sending email
to SGI as outlined below.
% mail wiretap-request@sgi.com
subscribe wiretap <YourEmailAddress>
end
^d
In the example above, <YourEmailAddress> is the email address that you
wish the mailing list information sent to. The word end must be on a
separate line to indicate the end of the body of the message. The
control-d (^d) is used to indicate to the mail program that you are
finished composing the mail message.
------oOo------
Silicon Graphics provides a comprehensive customer World Wide Web site.
This site is located at http://www.sgi.com/Support/security/security.html.
------oOo------
For reporting *NEW* SGI security issues, email can be sent to
security-alert@sgi.com or contact your SGI support provider. A
support contract is not required for submitting a security report.
______________________________________________________________________________
This information is provided freely to all interested parties and may
be redistributed provided that it is not altered in any way, Silicon
Graphics is appropriately credited and the document retains and
includes its valid PGP signature.
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