Buffer overflow in the AIM and ICQ module in Gaim before 1.5.0 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (application crash) and possibly execute arbitrary code via an away message with a large number of AIM substitution strings, such as %t or %n.

An updated gaim package that fixes multiple security issues is now available.

This update has been rated as having critical security impact by the Red Hat Security Response Team.

Gaim is an Internet Messaging client.

A heap based buffer overflow issue was discovered in the way Gaim processes away messages. A remote attacker could send a specially crafted away message to a Gaim user logged into AIM or ICQ that could result in arbitrary code execution. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the name CVE-2005-2103 to this issue.

Daniel Atallah discovered a denial of service issue in Gaim. A remote attacker could attempt to upload a file with a specially crafted name to a user logged into AIM or ICQ, causing Gaim to crash. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the name CVE-2005-2102 to this issue.

A denial of service bug was found in Gaim's Gadu Gadu protocol handler. A remote attacker could send a specially crafted message to a Gaim user logged into Gadu Gadu, causing Gaim to crash. Please note that this issue only affects PPC and IBM S/390 systems running Gaim.
The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the name CVE-2005-2370 to this issue.

Users of gaim are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which contains backported patches and is not vulnerable to these issues.

The GAIM team reports :

A remote AIM or ICQ user can cause a buffer overflow in Gaim by setting an away message containing many AIM substitution strings (such as %t or %n).

Daniel Atallah discovered a Denial of Service vulnerability in the file transfer handler of OSCAR (the module that handles various instant messaging protocols like ICQ). A remote attacker could crash the Gaim client of an user by attempting to send him a file with a name that contains invalid UTF-8 characters. (CAN-2005-2102)

It was found that specially crafted 'away' messages triggered a buffer overflow. A remote attacker could exploit this to crash the Gaim client or possibly even execute arbitrary code with the permissions of the Gaim user. (CAN-2005-2103)

Szymon Zygmunt and Michal Bartoszkiewicz discovered a memory alignment error in the Gadu library, which was fixed in USN-162-1.
However, it was discovered that Gaim contains a copy of the vulnerable code. By sending specially crafted messages over the Gadu protocol, a remote attacker could crash Gaim. (CAN-2005-2370).

Note that Tenable Network Security has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Ubuntu security advisory. Tenable has attempted to automatically clean and format it as much as possible without introducing additional issues.

Yet more vulnerabilities have been discovered in the gaim IM client.
Invalid characters in a sent file can cause Gaim to crash on some systems (CVE-2005-2102); a remote AIM or ICQ user can cause a buffer overflow in Gaim by setting an away message containing many AIM substitution strings (CVE-2005-2103); a memory alignment bug in the library used by Gaim to access the Gadu-Gadu network can result in a buffer overflow on non-x86 architecture systems (CVE-2005-2370).

These problems have been corrected in gaim 1.5.0 which is provided with this update.

New gaim packages are available for Slackware 9.0, 9.1, 10.0, 10.1, and -current to fix some security issues. including: AIM/ICQ away message buffer overflow AIM/ICQ non-UTF-8 filename crash Gadu-Gadu memory alignment bug Sites that use GAIM should upgrade to the new version.

The remote host is affected by the vulnerability described in GLSA-200508-06 (Gaim: Remote execution of arbitrary code)

    Brandon Perry discovered that Gaim is vulnerable to a heap-based     buffer overflow when handling away messages (CAN-2005-2103).
    Furthermore, Daniel Atallah discovered a vulnerability in the handling     of file transfers (CAN-2005-2102).
  Impact :

    A remote attacker could create a specially crafted away message     which, when viewed by the target user, could lead to the execution of     arbitrary code. Also, an attacker could send a file with a non-UTF8     filename to a user, which would result in a Denial of Service.
  Workaround :

    There is no known workaround at this time.

An updated gaim package that fixes a buffer overflow security issue is now available.

This update has been rated as having critical security impact by the Red Hat Security Response Team.

Gaim is an Internet Instant Messaging client.

A heap based buffer overflow issue was discovered in the way Gaim processes away messages. A remote attacker could send a specially crafted away message to a Gaim user logged into AIM or ICQ which could result in arbitrary code execution. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the name CVE-2005-2103 to this issue.

Users of gaim are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which contains backported patches and is not vulnerable to this issue.

The remote host seems to be running Gaim, a popular open-source, multi-protocol instant messenger. It is reported that this version of Gaim is vulnerable to several remote flaws.  An attacker exploiting these flaws would be able to create a Denial of Service (DoS) condition or possibly overflow system memory and execute arbitrary code.

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
21846	CentOS 3 / 4 : gaim (CESA-2005:627)	Nessus	CentOS Local Security Checks	high
21447	FreeBSD : gaim -- AIM/ICQ away message buffer overflow (6d1761d2-0b23-11da-bc08-0001020eed82)	Nessus	FreeBSD Local Security Checks	high
20574	Ubuntu 4.10 / 5.04 : gaim vulnerabilities (USN-168-1)	Nessus	Ubuntu Local Security Checks	high
19896	Mandrake Linux Security Advisory : gaim (MDKSA-2005:139)	Nessus	Mandriva Local Security Checks	high
19860	Slackware 10.0 / 10.1 / 9.0 / 9.1 / current : gaim (SSA:2005-242-03)	Nessus	Slackware Local Security Checks	high
19439	GLSA-200508-06 : Gaim: Remote execution of arbitrary code	Nessus	Gentoo Local Security Checks	high
19423	RHEL 3 / 4 : gaim (RHSA-2005:627)	Nessus	Red Hat Local Security Checks	high
19422	RHEL 2.1 : gaim (RHSA-2005:589)	Nessus	Red Hat Local Security Checks	high
3160	Gaim < 1.3.2 Multiple Vulnerabilities	Nessus Network Monitor	Internet Messengers	medium

Detections

Analytics

CVE-2005-2103

critical

Tenable Plugins

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medium