-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- ============================================================================= FreeBSD-SA-00:12 Security Advisory FreeBSD, Inc. Topic: healthd allows a local root compromise Category: ports Module: healthd Announced: 2000-04-10 Credits: Discovered during FreeBSD ports collection auditing. Affects: Ports collection before the correction date. Corrected: 2000-03-25 Vendor status: Updated version released. FreeBSD only: NO I. Background healthd is a small utility for monitoring the temperature, fan speed and voltage levels of certain motherboards. II. Problem Description healthd v0.3 installs a utility which is setuid root in order to monitor the system status. This utility contains a trivial buffer overflow which allows an unprivileged local user to obtain root privileges on the system. The healthd port is not installed by default, nor is it "part of FreeBSD" as such: it is part of the FreeBSD ports collection, which contains over 3200 third-party applications in a ready-to-install format. The ports collection shipped with FreeBSD 4.0 contains this problem since it was discovered after the release. FreeBSD makes no claim about the security of these third-party applications, although an effort is underway to provide a security audit of the most security-critical ports. III. Impact A local user can obtain root privileges by exploiting a vulnerability in the healthd utility. If you have not chosen to install the healthd port/package, then your system is not vulnerable. IV. Workaround Remove the healthd port, if you you have installed it. V. Solution 1) Upgrade your entire ports collection and rebuild the healthd port. 2) Reinstall a new package dated after the correction date, obtained from: ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-3-stable/sysutils/healthd-0.3.tgz ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-3-stable/sysutils/healthd-0.3.tgz ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/alpha/packages-3-stable/sysutils/healthd-0.3.tgz ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-5-current/sysutils/healthd-0.3.tgz ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/alpha/packages-5-current/sysutils/healthd-0.3.tgz 3) download a new port skeleton for the healthd port from: http://www.freebsd.org/ports/ and use it to rebuild the port. 4) Use the portcheckout utility to automate option (3) above. The portcheckout port is available in /usr/ports/devel/portcheckout or the package can be obtained from: ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/packages/devel/portcheckout-1.0.tgz -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBOPJABVUuHi5z0oilAQGEjgP/VQi4gknLQTpons+W/D3pT1fsk9F55HjQ 80pdBIfRxWNekFA+ZlfDNESLbG3qPyr+R4UaVxIZMnMVM/ZZRGPc/suYOxoHWZv0 F29AqveqINRewGHJoF+hw+DDGJPrrWy2t25BW9AX8KXPCJ2C1uiyChN+2egdJT5J EcTA8JgVU8I= =RtRI -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----