Gentoo Linux Advisory: glibc

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GENTOO LINUX SECURITY ANNOUNCEMENT
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PACKAGE        :glibc
SUMMARY        :integer overflow
DATE           :2002-09-05 11:00 UTC

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OVERVIEW

There is an integer overflow present in the xdr_array() function distributed
as part of the Sun Microsystems XDR library. This overflow has been shown to
lead to remotely exploitable buffer overflows in multiple applications,
leading to the execution of arbitrary code. Although the library was
originally distributed by Sun Microsystems, multiple vendors have included
the vulnerable code in their own implementations.

DETAIL

The XDR (external data representation) libraries are used to provide
platform-independent methods for sending data from one system process to
another, typically over a network connection. Such routines are commonly used
in remote procedure call (RPC) implementations to provide transparency to
application programmers who need to use common interfaces to interact with
many different types of systems. The xdr_array() function in the XDR library
provided by Sun Microsystems contains an integer overflow that can lead to
improperly sized dynamic memory allocation. Subsequent problems like buffer
overflows may result, depending on how and where the vulnerable xdr_array()
function is used.

More information can be found at:

http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CAN-2002-0391
http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/192995

SOLUTION

It is recommended that all Gentoo Linux users who are running
sys-libc/glibc-2.2.5-r5 and earlier update their systems
as follows:

emerge rsync
emerge glibc
emerge clean

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aliz@gentoo.org - GnuPG key is available at www.gentoo.org/~aliz
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