KDE 1446 Published by

KDE Security Advisory: kppp Privileged fd Leak Vulnerability
Original Release Date: 2005-02-28

URL: http://www.kde.org/info/security/advisory-20050228-1.txt

0. References

http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CAN-2005-0205


http://www.idefense.com/application/poi/display?id=208&type=vulnerabili
ties


1. Systems affected:

kppp as included in KDE up to including KDE 3.1.5. KDE 3.2.x and newer are not affected.



2. Overview:

kppp, if installed suid root, allows local attackers to hijack a system's domain name resolution function.


A fix introduced for a similiar vulnerability, added to the code base in 1998, was incomplete and can be bypassed.

In 2002 a proper fix was made by Dirk Mueller for KDE 3.2 as part of a code audit. No advisory was issued because the problem was considered to be unexploitable at that time. iDEFENSE now rediscovered the issue and supplied an example exploit for this vulnerability.


3. Impact:

Modifications to /etc/hosts and /etc/resolv.conf can be done by local users which allows manipulation of host and domain name lookups, enabling other phishing and social engineering attacks.


4. Solution:

Source code patches have been made available which fix these vulnerabilities. Contact your OS vendor / binary package provider for information about how to obtain updated binary packages.


5. Patch:

A patch for KDE 3.1 is available from


ftp://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/security_patches :

0e999df54963edd5f565b6d541f408d9 post-3.1.5-kdenetwork.diff


6. Time line and credits:

09/02/2005 Notification of kppp maintainer by iDEFENSE, Inc.
09/02/2005 Notification of KDE Security by Harri Porten
28/02/2005 Coordinated Public Disclosure