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126 lines
4.5 KiB
Plaintext
126 lines
4.5 KiB
Plaintext
GnuPG: remotely controllable function pointer [CVE-2006-6235]
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===============================================================
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2006-12-04
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Summary
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=======
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Tavis Ormandy of the Gentoo security team identified a severe and
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exploitable bug in the processing of encrypted packets in GnuPG.
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[ Please do not send private mail in response to this message. The
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mailing list gnupg-devel is the best place to discuss this problem
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(please subscribe first so you don't need moderator approval [1]). ]
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Impact
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======
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Using malformed OpenPGP packets an attacker is able to modify and
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dereference a function pointer in GnuPG. This is a remotely
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exploitable bug and affects any use of GnuPG where an attacker can
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control the data processed by GnuPG. It is not necessary limited to
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encrypted data, also signed data may be affected.
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Affected versions: All versions of GnuPG < 1.4.6
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All versions of GnuPG-2 < 2.0.2
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All beta versions of GnuPG-2 (1.9.0 .. 1.9.95)
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Affected tools: gpg, gpgv, gpg2 and gpgv2.
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Affected platforms: All.
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gpg-agent, gpgsm as well as other tools are not affected.
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A workaround is not known.
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Solution
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========
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If you are using a vendor supplied version of GnuPG:
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* Wait for an update from your vendor. Vendors have been informed on
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Saturday December 2, less than a day after this bug has been reported.
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If you are using GnuPG 1.4:
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* Update as soon as possible to GnuPG 1.4.6. It has been uploaded to
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the usual location: ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/gnupg/. This version
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was due to be released anyway this week. See
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http://www.gnupg.org/download/ for details.
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* Or: As another and less intrusive option, apply the attached patch
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to GnuPG 1.4.5. This is the smallest possible fix.
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If you are using GnuPG 2.0:
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* Apply the attached patch against GnuPG 2.0.1.
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* Or: Stop using gpg2 and gpgv2, install GnuPG 1.4.6 and use gpg and gpgv
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instead.
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If you are using a binary Windows version of GnuPG:
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* A binary version of GnuPG 1.4.6 for Windows is available as usual.
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* Gpg4win 1.0.8, including GnuPG 1.4.6, is available. Please go to
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http://www.gpg4win.org .
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Background
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==========
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GnuPG uses data structures called filters to process OpenPGP messages.
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These filters ware used in a similar way as a pipelines in the shell.
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For communication between these filters context structures are used.
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These are usually allocated on the stack and passed to the filter
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functions. At most places the OpenPGP data stream fed into these
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filters is closed before the context structure gets deallocated.
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While decrypting encrypted packets, this may not happen in all cases
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and the filter may use a void contest structure filled with garbage.
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An attacker may control this garbage. The filter context includes
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another context used by the low-level decryption to access the
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decryption algorithm. This is done using a function pointer. By
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carefully crafting an OpenPGP message, an attacker may control this
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function pointer and call an arbitrary function of the process.
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Obviously an exploit needs to prepared for a specific version,
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compiler, libc, etc to be successful - but it is definitely doable.
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Fixing this is obvious: We need to allocate the context on the heap
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and use a reference count to keep it valid as long as either the
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controlling code or the filter code needs it.
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We have checked all other usages of such a stack based filter contexts
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but fortunately found no other vulnerable places. This allows to
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release a relatively small patch. However, for reasons of code
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cleanness and easier audits we will soon start to change all these
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stack based filter contexts to heap based ones.
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Support
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=======
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g10 Code GmbH, a Duesseldorf based company owned and headed by GnuPG's
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principal author, is currently funding GnuPG development. As evident
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by the two vulnerabilities found within a week, a review of the entire
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code base should be undertaken as soon as possible. As maintainers we
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try to do our best and are working slowly through the code. The long
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standing plan is to scrutinize the 2.0 code base, write more test
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cases and to backport new fixes and cleanups to 1.4. However, as a
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small company our resources are limited and we need to prioritize
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other projects which get us actual revenues. Support contracts or
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other financial backing would greatly help us to improve the quality
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of GnuPG.
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Thanks
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======
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Tavis Ormandy found this vulnerability.
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[1] See http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-devel .
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