-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 NetBSD Security Advisory 2008-010 ================================= Topic: Malicious PPPoE discovery packet can overrun a kernel buffer Version: NetBSD-current: affected NetBSD 4.0: affected NetBSD 3.1.*: affected NetBSD 3.1 affected NetBSD 3.0.*: affected NetBSD 3.0: affected Severity: Remote denial-of-service Fixed: NetBSD-current: August 08, 2008 NetBSD-4-0 branch: August 08, 2008 (4.0.1 will include the fix) NetBSD-4 branch: August 08, 2008 (4.1 will include the fix) NetBSD-3-1 branch: August 08, 2008 (3.1.2 will include the fix) NetBSD-3-0 branch: August 08, 2008 (3.0.4 will include the fix) NetBSD-3 branch: August 08, 2008 (3.2 will include the fix) Abstract ======== A problem has been identified in the pppoe(4) code. A bug in range checking allows a malicious packet to make the kernel access memory outside of the allocated buffer and cause a kernel crash. It is currently unclear if this issue could be exploited any further than denial of service. This vulnerability has been assigned CVE-2008-3584. Technical Details ================= The critical code deals with early states of a PPPoE connection, before a session between client and access concentrator has been established. Packets in this "discovery" phase may consist of multiple variable length "tags" packed together in a pppoe packet. Each tag is checked and the length validated against to total packet size. A bug in this length check allowed packets to advance the next tag pointer to up to 4 bytes beyond the end of the packet. This can cause a kernel crash. The problematic code path is executed even without active pppoe(4) interfaces, as long as at least one has been created with "ifconfig pppoe0 create". No further configuration of the pppoe(4) interface is needed. The attack is not routable, so attackers would have to have access to the LAN of an affected machine - or the DSL side would need to be configured like a shared ethernet segment. This is uncommon, but done by some providers. Solutions and Workarounds ========================= The pseudo-device pppoe is present in GENERIC kernels. The system must be configured with a pppoe(4) instance. For all NetBSD versions, you need to obtain fixed kernel sources, rebuild and install the new kernel, and reboot the system. The fixed source may be obtained from the NetBSD CVS repository. The following instructions briefly summarise how to upgrade your kernel. In these instructions, replace: ARCH with your architecture (from uname -m), and KERNCONF with the name of your kernel configuration file. To update from CVS, re-build, and re-install the kernel: # cd src # cvs update -d -P sys/net/if_spppsubr.c # ./build.sh kernel=KERNCONF # mv /netbsd /netbsd.old # cp sys/arch/ARCH/compile/obj/KERNCONF/netbsd /netbsd # shutdown -r now For more information on how to do this, see: http://www.NetBSD.org/guide/en/chap-kernel.html Thanks To ========= Yasuoka Masahiko from Internet Initiative Japan Inc. for discovering the problem and providing a fix. Revision History ================ 2008-08-26 Initial release 2008-08-27 Added CVE reference More Information ================ Advisories may be updated as new information becomes available. The most recent version of this advisory (PGP signed) can be found at ftp://ftp.NetBSD.org/pub/NetBSD/security/advisories/NetBSD-SA2008-010.txt.asc Information about NetBSD and NetBSD security can be found at http://www.NetBSD.org/ and http://www.NetBSD.org/Security/. Copyright 2008, The NetBSD Foundation, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Redistribution permitted only in full, unmodified form. $NetBSD: NetBSD-SA2008-010.txt,v 1.5 2008/08/27 08:11:00 adrianp Exp $ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (NetBSD) iQCVAwUBSLUMEj5Ru2/4N2IFAQLbTQP/Sh7Avn7SJg8yDVeR8fKlvl+AndWOVNO7 nGlPNP85uf8uRWuIcOqF8ZqgsTvAf5RGcfL8SdXTFMopAsXVQLpS6mCYPBC9tJpE n+fD4Z2RCDKowhGVlB4YAraiYCgVtXwWLBb8BxECdwbP0VMJk2qlD1DPw+HjP0F+ ViyDJO5SL1Q= =aFuK -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----