expand.c in Exim before 4.83 expands mathematical comparisons twice, which allows local users to gain privileges and execute arbitrary commands via a crafted lookup value.

The remote Redhat Enterprise Linux 5 host has one or more packages installed that are affected by multiple vulnerabilities that have been acknowledged by the vendor but will not be patched.

  - exim: out-of-bounds access in string_interpret_escape() leading to buffer overflow in the SMTP delivery     process (CVE-2019-15846)

  - The open_log function in log.c in Exim 4.72 and earlier does not check the return value from (1) setuid or     (2) setgid system calls, which allows local users to append log data to arbitrary files via a symlink     attack. (CVE-2011-0017)

  - expand.c in Exim before 4.83 expands mathematical comparisons twice, which allows local users to gain     privileges and execute arbitrary commands via a crafted lookup value. (CVE-2014-2972)

Note that Nessus has not tested for these issues but has instead relied on the package manager's report that the package is installed.

The remote host is affected by the vulnerability described in GLSA-201607-12 (Exim: Arbitrary code execution)

    Vulnerabilities have been discovered in Exim&rsquo;s implementation of       set-uid root and when using &lsquo;perl_startup&rsquo;. These vulnerabilities       require a user account on the Exim server and a configuration that does       lookups against files to which the user has edit access.
  Impact :

    A local attacker could possibly execute arbitrary code with the       privileges of the process, or escalate privileges.
  Workaround :

    There is no known workaround at this time.

The remote Ubuntu 14.04 LTS host has packages installed that are affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the USN-2933-1 advisory.

    It was discovered that Exim incorrectly filtered environment variables when used with the perl_startup     configuration option. If the perl_startup option was enabled, a local attacker could use this issue to     escalate their privileges to the root user. This issue has been fixed by having Exim clean the complete     execution environment by default on startup, including any subprocesses such as transports that call other     programs. This change in behaviour may break existing installations and can be adjusted by using two new     configuration options, keep_environment and add_environment. (CVE-2016-1531)

    Patrick William discovered that Exim incorrectly expanded mathematical comparisons twice. A local attacker     could possibly use this issue to perform arbitrary file operations as the Exim user. This issue only     affected Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. (CVE-2014-2972)

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Ubuntu security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for these issues but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

Changes in exim :

  - Silence static checkers; (beo#1506).

  - update to 4.83 This release of Exim includes one     incompatible fix :

  + the behavior of expansion of arguments to math     comparison functions (<, <=, =, =>, >) was unexpected,     expanding the values twice; CVE-2014-2972; (bnc#888520)     This release contains the following enhancements and     bugfixes :

  + PRDR was promoted from Experimental to mainline

  + OCSP Stapling was promoted from Experimental to mainline

  + new Experimental feature Proxy Protocol

  + new Experimental feature DSN (Delivery Status     Notifications)

  + TLS session improvements

  + TLS SNI fixes

  + LDAP enhancements

  + DMARC fixes (previous CVE-2014-2957) and new     $dmarc_domain_policy

  + several new operations (listextract, utf8clean, md5,     sha1)

  + enforce header formatting with verify=header_names_ascii

  + new commandline option -oMm

  + new TLSA dns lookup

  + new malware 'sock' type

  + cutthrough routing enhancements

  + logging enhancements

  + DNSSEC enhancements

  + exiqgrep enhancements

  + deprecating non-standard SPF results

  + build and portability fixes

  + documentation fixes and enhancements

  - Verify source tar ball gpg signature.

  - Refresh exim-enable_ecdh_openssl.patch and strip version     number from the patch filename.

  - exim482-enable_ecdh_openssl.patch: Enable ECDH (elliptic     curve diffie hellman) support, taken from     http://bugs.exim.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1397

  - BuildRequire libopenssl-devel only on SUSE systems.

  - Fix suse_version condition of the pre- and postun     scriptlets.

  - Call service_add_pre from pre scriptlet on post-12.2     systems.

  - update to 4.82

  - Add -bI: framework, and -bI:sieve for querying sieve     capabilities.

  - Make -n do something, by making it not do something.
    When combined with -bP, the name of an option is not     output.

  - Added tls_dh_min_bits SMTP transport driver option, only     honoured by GnuTLS.

  - First step towards DNSSEC, provide $sender_host_dnssec     for $sender_host_name and config options to manage this,     and basic check routines.

  - DSCP support for outbound connections and control     modifier for inbound.

  - Cyrus SASL: set local and remote IP;port properties for     driver. (Only plugin which currently uses this is     kerberos4, which nobody should be using, but we should     make it available and other future plugins might     conceivably use it, even though it would break NAT;
    stuff *should* be using channel bindings instead).

  - Handle 'exim -L <tag>' to indicate to use syslog with     tag as the process name; added for Sendmail     compatibility; requires admin caller. Handle -G as     equivalent to 'control = suppress_local_fixups' (we used     to just ignore it); requires trusted caller. Also parse     but ignore: -Ac -Am -X<logfile> Bugzilla 1117.

  - Bugzilla 1258 - Refactor MAIL FROM optional args     processing.

  - Add +smtp_confirmation as a default logging option.

  - Bugzilla 198 - Implement remove_header ACL modifier.

  - Bugzilla 1197, 1281, 1283 - Spec typo.

  - Bugzilla 1290 - Spec grammar fixes.

  - Bugzilla 1285 - Spec omission, fix docbook errors for     spec.txt creation.

  - Add Experimental DMARC support using libopendmarc     libraries.

  - Fix an out of order global option causing a segfault.
    Reported to dev mailing list by by Dmitry Isaikin.

  - Bugzilla 1201 & 304 - New cutthrough-delivery feature,     with TLS support.

  - Support 'G' suffix to numbers in $(if comparisons.

  - Handle smtp transport tls_sni option forced-fail for     OpenSSL.

  - Bugzilla 1196 - Spec examples corrections

  - Add expansion operators $(listnamed:name) and     $(listcount:string)

  - Add gnutls_allow_auto_pkcs11 option (was originally     called gnutls_enable_pkcs11, but renamed to more     accurately indicate its function.

  - Let Linux makefile inherit CFLAGS/CFLAGS_DYNAMIC. Pulled     from Debian 30_dontoverridecflags.dpatch by Andreas     Metzler.

  - Add expansion item $(acl (name)(arg)...), expansion     condition 'acl ((name)(arg)...)', and optional args on     acl condition 'acl = name arg...'

  - Permit multiple router/transport headers_add/remove     lines.

  - Add dnsdb pseudo-lookup 'a+' to do an 'aaaa' + 'a'     combination.

  - Avoid using a waiting database for a single-message-only     transport. Performance patch from Paul Fisher. Bugzilla     1262.

  - Strip leading/trailing newlines from add_header ACL     modifier data. Bugzilla 884.

  - Add $headers_added variable, with content from use of     ACL modifier add_header (but not yet added to the     message). Bugzilla 199.

  - Add 8bitmime log_selector, for 8bitmime status on the     received line. Pulled from Bugzilla 817 by Wolfgang     Breyha.

  - SECURITY: protect DKIM DNS decoding from remote exploit.
    CVE-2012-5671 (nb: this is the same fix as in Exim     4.80.1)

  - Add A= logging on delivery lines, and a client_set_id     option on authenticators.

  - Add optional authenticated_sender logging to A= and a     log_selector for control.

  - Unbreak server_set_id for NTLM/SPA auth, broken by 4.80     PP/29.

  - Dovecot auth: log better reason to rejectlog if Dovecot     did not advertise SMTP AUTH mechanism to us, instead of     a generic protocol violation error. Also, make Exim more     robust to bad data from the Dovecot auth socket.

  - Fix ultimate retry timeouts for intermittently     deliverable recipients.

  - When a queue runner is handling a message, Exim first     routes the recipient addresses, during which it prunes     them based on the retry hints database. After that it     attempts to deliver the message to any remaining     recipients. It then updates the hints database using the     retry rules.

  - So if a recipient address works intermittently, it can     get repeatedly deferred at routing time. The retry hints     record remains fresh so the address never reaches the     final cutoff time.

  - This is a fairly common occurrence when a user is     bumping up against their storage quota. Exim had some     logic in its local delivery code to deal with this.
    However it did not apply to per-recipient defers in     remote deliveries, e.g. over LMTP to a separate IMAP     message store.

  - This change adds a proper retry rule check during     routing so that the final cutoff time is checked against     the message's age. We only do this check if there is an     address retry record and there is not a domain retry     record; this implies that previous attempts to handle     the address had the retry_use_local_parts option turned     on. We use this as an approximation for the destination     being like a local delivery, as in LMTP.

  - I suspect this new check makes the old local delivery     cutoff check redundant, but I have not verified this so     I left the code in place.

  - Correct gecos expansion when From: is a prefix of the     username.

  - Test 0254 submits a message to Exim with the header &#9;
    Resent-From: f

  - When I ran the test suite under the user fanf2, Exim     expanded the header to contain my full name, whereas it     should have added a Resent-Sender: header. It     erroneously treats any prefix of the username as equal     to the username. This change corrects that bug.

  - DCC debug and logging tidyup Error conditions log to     paniclog rather than rejectlog. Debug lines prefixed by     'DCC: ' to remove any ambiguity.

  - Avoid unnecessary rebuilds of lookup-related code.

  - Fix OCSP reinitialisation in SNI handling for Exim/TLS     as server. Bug spotted by Jeremy Harris; was flawed     since initial commit. Would have resulted in OCSP     responses post-SNI triggering an Exim NULL dereference     and crash.

  - Add $router_name and $transport_name variables. Bugzilla     308.

  - Define SIOCGIFCONF_GIVES_ADDR for GNU Hurd. Bug     detection, analysis and fix by Samuel Thibault. Bugzilla     1331, Debian bug #698092.

  - Update eximstats to watch out for senders sending 'HELO     [IpAddr]'

  - SMTP PRDR     (http://www.eric-a-hall.com/specs/draft-hall-prdr-00.txt     ). Server implementation by Todd Lyons, client by JH.
    Only enabled when compiled with EXPERIMENTAL_PRDR. A new     config variable 'prdr_enable' controls whether the     server advertises the facility. If the client requests     PRDR a new acl_data_smtp_prdr ACL is called once for     each recipient, after the body content is received and     before the acl_smtp_data ACL. The client is controlled     by bolth of: a hosts_try_prdr option on the smtp     transport, and the server advertisement. Default client     logging of deliveries and rejections involving PRDR are     flagged with the string 'PRDR'.

  - Fix problems caused by timeouts during quit ACLs trying     to double fclose(). Diagnosis by Todd Lyons. Update     configure.default to handle IPv6 localhost better. Patch     by Alain Williams (plus minor tweaks). Bugzilla 880.

  - OpenSSL made graceful with empty tls_verify_certificates     setting. This is now consistent with GnuTLS, and is now     documented: the previous undocumented portable approach     to treating the option as unset was to force an     expansion failure. That still works, and an empty string     is now equivalent.

  - Renamed DNSSEC-enabling option to 'dns_dnssec_ok', to     make it clearer that Exim is using the DO (DNSSEC OK)     EDNS0 resolver flag, not performing validation itself.

  - Added force_command boolean option to pipe transport.
    Patch from Nick Koston, of cPanel Inc.

  - AUTH support on callouts (and hence     cutthrough-deliveries). Bugzilla 321, 823.

  - Added udpsend ACL modifer and hexquote expansion     operator

  - Fix eximon continuous updating with timestamped     log-files. Broken in a format-string cleanup in 4.80,     missed when I repaired the other false fix of the same     issue. Report and fix from Heiko Schlichting. Bugzilla     1363.

  - Guard LDAP TLS usage against Solaris LDAP variant.
    Report from Prashanth Katuri.

  - Support safari_ecdhe_ecdsa_bug for openssl_options. It's     SecureTransport, so affects any MacOS clients which use     the system-integrated TLS libraries, including email     clients.

  - Fix segfault from trying to fprintf() to a NULL stdio     FILE* if using a MIME ACL for non-SMTP local injection.
    Report and assistance in diagnosis by Warren Baker.

  - Adjust exiqgrep to be case-insensitive for     sender/receiver.

  - Fix comparisons for 64b. Bugzilla 1385.

  - Add expansion variable $authenticated_fail_id to keep     track of last id that failed so it may be referenced in     subsequent ACL's.

  - Bugzilla 1375 - Prevent TLS rebinding in ldap. Patch     provided by Alexander Miroch.

  - Bugzilla 1382 - Option ldap_require_cert overrides     start_tls ldap library initialization, allowing     self-signed CA's to be used. Also properly sets     require_cert option later in code by using NULL (global     ldap config) instead of ldap handle (per session). Bug     diagnosis and testing by alxgomz.

  - Enhanced documentation in the ratelimit.pl script     provided in the src/util/ subdirectory.

  - Bug 1301 - Imported transport SQL logging patch from     Axel Rau renamed to Transport Post Delivery Action by     Jeremy Harris, as EXPERIMENTAL_TPDA.

  - Bugzilla 1217 - Redis lookup support has been added. It     is only enabled when Exim is compiled with     EXPERIMENTAL_REDIS. A new config variable redis_servers     = needs to be configured which will be used by the redis     lookup. Patch from Warren Baker, of The Packet Hub.

  - Fix exiqsumm summary for corner case. Patch provided by     Richard Hall.

  - Bugzilla 1289 - Clarify host/ip processing when have     errors looking up a hostname or reverse DNS when     processing a host list. Used suggestions from multiple     comments on this bug.

  - Bugzilla 1057 - Multiple clamd TCP targets patch from     Mark Zealey.

  - Had previously added a -CONTINUE option to runtest in     the test suite. Missed a few lines, added it to make the     runtest require no keyboard interaction.

  - Bugzilla 1402 - Test 533 fails if any part of the path     to the test suite contains upper case chars. Make router     use caseful_local_part.

  - Bugzilla 1400 - Add AVOID_GNUTLS_PKCS11 build option.
    Allows GnuTLS support when GnuTLS has been built with     p11-kit.

  - Add systemd support for openSUSE > 12.2

  - Remove some obsolete conditionnal macros

  - exim.spec forces the use of SSL libraries, so make sure     the BuildRequires are there. Also add previously     implicit cyrus-sasl back.

  - Fixed another remote code execution issue (CVE-2011-1407     / bnc#694798)

  - Fixed STARTTLS command injection (bnc#695144)

According to its banner, the version of Exim running on the remote host is prior to 4.83. It is, therefore, potentially affected by a data insertion vulnerability. A flaw exists in the expansion of arguments to math comparison functions which can cause values to be expanded twice. This could permit a local attacker to insert arbitrary data.

Security fix for CVE-2014-2972

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

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
198550	RHEL 5 : exim (Unpatched Vulnerability)	Nessus	Red Hat Local Security Checks	critical
92482	GLSA-201607-12 : Exim: Arbitrary code execution	Nessus	Gentoo Local Security Checks	medium
89962	Ubuntu 14.04 LTS : Exim vulnerabilities (USN-2933-1)	Nessus	Ubuntu Local Security Checks	high
78338	Amazon Linux AMI : exim (ALAS-2014-395)	Nessus	Amazon Linux Local Security Checks	medium
77126	openSUSE Security Update : exim (openSUSE-SU-2014:0983-1)	Nessus	SuSE Local Security Checks	high
77055	Exim < 4.83 Math Comparison Functions Data Insertion	Nessus	SMTP problems	medium
76982	Fedora 20 : exim-4.80.1-7.fc20 (2014-8865)	Nessus	Fedora Local Security Checks	medium
76981	Fedora 19 : exim-4.80.1-4.fc19 (2014-8803)	Nessus	Fedora Local Security Checks	medium

Detections

Analytics

CVE-2014-2972

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Tenable Plugins

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medium