The default permissions on /dev/kmem is insecure
Summary
______________________________________________________________________________
SuSE Security Announcement
Packages: devs-*
linux-2.0.35 and below
Date: Thu Mar 18 10:22:11 CET 1999
Affected: SuSE 6.0 and below, other Linux distributions
SuSE 5.3 and below, other Linux distributions
______________________________________________________________________________
A security hole was discovered in the package mentioned above.
Please update as soon as possible or disable the service if you are using
this software on your SuSE Linux installation(s).
Other Linux distributions or operating systems might be affected as
well, please contact your vendor for information about this issue.
Please note, that that we provide this information on as "as-is" basis only.
There is no warranty whatsoever and no liability for any direct, indirect or
incidental damage arising from this information or the installation of
the update package.
______________________________________________________________________________
1. Problem Description
The default permissions on /dev/kmem is insecure.
A bug in all Linux 2.0.x kernels except 2.0.36 have a vulnerability
which makes blind ip-spoofing possible.
2. Impact
If programs like lsof have got vulnerabilities (like buffer overflows)
root access can easily be obtained.
Note that lsof *had* a buffer overflow, for which SuSE issued a bug fix
some time ago. Please ensure that you installed it.
IP addresses used for authentication or logging can't be relied on.
If services which rely on trust are used on a system, remote access
to a system can be obtained.
No authentication should rely on IP addresses anyway ...
3. Solution
Execute the following command:
/bin/chmod 640 /dev/kmem
Install the 2.0.36 or a 2.2.x kernel.
They are available from our webserver (see below)
______________________________________________________________________________
Here is the md5 checksum of the upgrade package, please verify this
before installing the new package:
a0b520d70026ef236efd2c7d7c87b233 linux-2.0.36.tar.gz
3e737f6f33534dd15c440cc5c51ebcb5 linux-2.0.36.SuSE.tgz
4bd690ca533b6c07e2f81f160e59ee6c linux-2.2.3.tar.gz
______________________________________________________________________________
You will find the update on our ftp-Server:
http://www.suse.de/patches/index.html
or try the following web pages for a list of mirrors:
http://www.suse.de/ftp.html
https://www.suse.com/
______________________________________________________________________________
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______________________________________________________________________________
If you want to report *NEW* security bugs in the SuSE Linux Distribution
please send an email to security@suse.de or call our support line.
You may use pgp with the public key below to ensure confidentiality.
______________________________________________________________________________
This information is provided freely to everyone interested and may
be redistributed provided that it is not altered in any way.
Type Bits/KeyID Date User ID
pub 2048/3D25D3D9 1999/03/06 SuSE Security Team
References
