Caldera Systems Security Advisory: various security problems with majordomo

Caldera Systems, Inc. Security Advisory

Subject: various security problems with majordomo
Advisory number: CSSA-1999-039.0
Issue date: 2000 January, 25
Cross reference:

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1. Problem Description

There are several bugs in majordomo that allow arbitrary users
to execute commands with the privilege of majordomo. If the
sendmail aliases file contains aliases that invoke majordomo, a
compromise of additional system accounts is possible, which may
further on lead to a root compromise. An immediate root exploit has
not been found however.

2. Vulnerable Versions

Systems : up to COL 2.3
Packages: previous to majordomo-1.94.5-1

3. Solutions

Workaround:

Change the group of the wrapper excutable to daemon, and turn
off world execute rights:

chgrp daemon /usr/lib/majordomo/wrapper
chmod o-x /usr/lib/majordomo/wrapper

The proper solution is to upgrade to the latest packages

rpm -U majordomo-1.94.5-1.i386.rpm

If you do not use majordomo, we recommend to remove the package
entirely using

rpm -e majordomo

4. Location of Fixed Packages

The upgrade packages can be found on Caldera’s FTP site at:

ftp://ftp.calderasystems.com/pub/OpenLinux/updates/2.3/current/RPMS/

The corresponding source code package can be found at:

ftp://ftp.calderaystems.com/pub/OpenLinux/updates/2.3/current/SRPMS

5. Installing Fixed Packages

Upgrade the affected packages with the following commands:

rpm -U majordomo-1.94.5-1.i386.rpm

6. Verification

39eeb53bb2f565c2e75efbb06e3156aa
RPMS/majordomo-1.94.5-1.i386.rpm
c409cfcde13893f99f50873b176b71d8
SRPMS/majordomo-1.94.5-1.src.rpm

7. References

This and other Caldera security resources are located at:

http://www.calderasystems.com/support/security/index.html

This security fix closes Caldera’s internal Problem Report
5615

8. Disclaimer

Caldera Systems, Inc. is not responsible for the misuse of any
of the information we provide on this website and/or through our
security advisories. Our advisories are a service to our customers
intended to promote secure installation and use of Caldera
OpenLinux.