___________________________________________________________________________ TurboLinux Security Announcement Package: ncurses Vulnerable Packages: All versions previous to 5.2 Date: 05/04/2001 5:00 PDT Affected TurboLinux versions: TL 6.1 WorkStation, All TurboLinux versions 6.0.5 and earlier TurboLinux Advisory ID#: TLSA2001007 Credits: Vulnerability discovered by Jouko Pynnonen < jouko@solutions.fi > ___________________________________________________________________________ A security hole has been discovered in this package. Please update the packages in your installation as soon as possible. ___________________________________________________________________________ 1. Problem Summary Ncurses contains buffer overflow vulnerabilities. It searches for term- cap entries in a file called .terminfo in the home directory. If it exists, it makes string copies of data in the file to local buffers in the process' stack. The copy process is insecure because it does not check to ensure that the amount of bytes copied does not exceed the pre- determined buffer size. Therefore, an attacker can easily create a .terminfo file with excessive data. The excess data would overwrite bytes on the stack beyond the defined boundary of the buffer when copied. 2. Impact Attackers may be able to exploit setuid or setgid programs linked to ncurses and elevate their privileges. A program linked to ncurses isn't immediately vulnerable. It must use certain functions within ncurses in some way in order for the vulnera- bility to be exploitable. 3. Solution Update each package from our ftp server by running the following command: rpm -Uvh ftp_path_to_filename Where ftp_path_to_filename is the following: ftp://ftp.turbolinux.com/pub/updates/6.0/security/ncurses-5.2-2.i386.rpm ftp://ftp.turbolinux.com/pub/updates/6.0/security/ncurses-devel-5.2-2.i386.rpm The source RPM can be downloaded here: ftp://ftp.turbolinux.com/pub/updates/6.0/SRPMS/ncurses-5.2-2.src.rpm **Note: You must rebuild and install the RPM if you choose to download and install the SRPM. Simply installing the SRPM alone WILL NOT CLOSE THE SECURITY HOLE. Please verify the MD5 checksums of the updates before you install: MD5 sum Package Name --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3249e53e7dd90f9e632db0455b160671 ncurses-5.2-2.i386.rpm 945afabba59f62903cb676a5a52dec87 ncurses-devel-5.2-2.i386.rpm f8464c82ab7300551b0aca27060e8302 ncurses-5.2-2.src.rpm ___________________________________________________________________________ These packages are GPG signed by TurboLinux for security. Our key is available here: http://www.turbolinux.com/security/tlgpgkey.asc To verify a package, use the following command: rpm --checksig name_of_rpm To examine only the md5sum, use the following command: md5sum name_of_rpm **Note: Checking GPG keys requires RPM 3.0 or higher. ___________________________________________________________________________ You can find more updates on our ftp server: ftp://ftp.turbolinux.com/pub/updates/6.0/security/ for TL6.0 Workstation and Server security updates Our webpage for security announcements: http://www.turbolinux.com/security If you want to report vulnerabilities, please contact: security@turbolinux.com ___________________________________________________________________________ Subscribe to the TurboLinux Security Mailing lists: TL-security - A moderated list for discussing security issues TurboLinux products. Subscribe at http://www.turbolinux.com/mailman/listinfo/tl-security TL-security-announce - An announce-only mailing list for security updates and alerts. Subscribe at: http://www.turbolinux.com/mailman/listinfo/tl-security-announce