Jeroen van Wolffelaar reports that the Perl module File::Path contains a race condition wherein traversed directories and files are temporarily made world-readable/writable.

Several vulnerabilities have been discovered in Perl, the popular scripting language. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project identifies the following problems :

  - CAN-2004-0452     Jeroen van Wolffelaar discovered that the rmtree()     function in the File::Path module removes directory     trees in an insecure manner which could lead to the     removal of arbitrary files and directories through a     symlink attack.

  - CAN-2004-0976

    Trustix developers discovered several insecure uses of     temporary files in many modules which allow a local     attacker to overwrite files via a symlink attack.

The remote Solaris system is missing necessary patches to address security updates :

  - Race condition in the rmtree function in the File::Path     module in Perl 5.6.1 and 5.8.4 sets read/write     permissions for the world, which allows local users to     delete arbitrary files and directories, and possibly     read files and directories, via a symlink attack.
    (CVE-2004-0452)

  - Buffer overflow in the PerlIO implementation in Perl     5.8.0, when installed with setuid support (sperl),     allows local users to execute arbitrary code by setting     the PERLIO_DEBUG variable and executing a Perl script     whose full pathname contains a long directory tree.
    (CVE-2005-0156)

  - Race condition in the rmtree function in File::Path.pm     in Perl before 5.8.4 allows local users to create     arbitrary setuid binaries in the tree being deleted, a     different vulnerability than CVE-2004-0452.
    (CVE-2005-0448)

  - Untrusted search path vulnerability in Perl before     5.8.7-r1 on Gentoo Linux allows local users in the     portage group to gain privileges via a malicious shared     object in the Portage temporary build directory, which     is part of the RUNPATH. (CVE-2005-4278)

  - Integer overflow in the regular expression engine in     Perl 5.8.x allows context-dependent attackers to cause a     denial of service (stack consumption and application     crash) by matching a crafted regular expression against     a long string. (CVE-2010-1158)

  - Off-by-one error in the decode_xs function in     Unicode/Unicode.xs in the Encode module before 2.44, as     used in Perl before 5.15.6, might allow     context-dependent attackers to cause a denial of service     (memory corruption) via a crafted Unicode string, which     triggers a heap-based buffer overflow. (CVE-2011-2939)

  - CGI.pm module before 3.63 for Perl does not properly     escape newlines in (1) Set-Cookie or (2) P3P headers,     which might allow remote attackers to inject arbitrary     headers into responses from applications that use     CGI.pm. (CVE-2012-5526)

The remote Redhat Enterprise Linux 4 host has packages installed that are affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the RHSA-2005:103 advisory.

    Perl is a high-level programming language commonly used for system     administration utilities and Web programming.

    Kevin Finisterre discovered a stack based buffer overflow flaw in sperl,     the Perl setuid wrapper. A local user could create a sperl executable     script with a carefully created path name, overflowing the buffer and     leading to root privilege escalation.  The Common Vulnerabilities and     Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the name CAN-2005-0156 to     this issue.

    Kevin Finisterre discovered a flaw in sperl which can cause debugging     information to be logged to arbitrary files.  By setting an environment     variable, a local user could cause sperl to create, as root, files with     arbitrary filenames, or append the debugging information to existing files.
    The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has     assigned the name CAN-2005-0155 to this issue.

    An unsafe file permission bug was discovered in the rmtree() function in     the File::Path module.  The rmtree() function removes files and directories     in an insecure manner, which could allow a local user to read or delete     arbitrary files. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project     (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the name CAN-2004-0452 to this issue.

    Users of Perl are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which     contains backported patches to correct these issues.

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Red Hat Enterprise Linux security advisory.

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

A race condition and possible information leak has been discovered in Perl's File::Path::rmtree(). This function changes the permission of files and directories before removing them to avoid problems with wrong permissions. However, they were made readable and writable not only for the owner, but for the entire world, which opened a race condition and a possible information leak (if the actual removal of a file/directory failed for some reason).

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.

Jeroen van Wolffelaar discovered that the rmtree() function in the perl File::Path module would remove directories in an insecure manner which could lead to the removal of arbitrary files and directories via a symlink attack (CVE-2004-0452).

Trustix developers discovered several insecure uses of temporary files in many modules which could allow a local attacker to overwrite files via symlink attacks (CVE-2004-0976).

'KF' discovered two vulnerabilities involving setuid-enabled perl scripts. By setting the PERLIO_DEBUG environment variable and calling an arbitrary setuid-root perl script, an attacker could overwrite arbitrary files with perl debug messages (CVE-2005-0155). As well, calling a setuid-root perl script with a very long path would cause a buffer overflow if PERLIO_DEBUG was set, which could be exploited to execute arbitrary files with root privileges (CVE-2005-0156).

The provided packages have been patched to resolve these problems.

Updated Perl packages that fix several security issues are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.

Perl is a high-level programming language commonly used for system administration utilities and Web programming.

Kevin Finisterre discovered a stack based buffer overflow flaw in sperl, the Perl setuid wrapper. A local user could create a sperl executable script with a carefully created path name, overflowing the buffer and leading to root privilege escalation. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the name CVE-2005-0156 to this issue.

Kevin Finisterre discovered a flaw in sperl which can cause debugging information to be logged to arbitrary files. By setting an environment variable, a local user could cause sperl to create, as root, files with arbitrary filenames, or append the debugging information to existing files. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the name CVE-2005-0155 to this issue.

Users of Perl are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches to correct these issues.

The remote host is affected by the vulnerability described in GLSA-200501-38 (Perl: rmtree and DBI tmpfile vulnerabilities)

    Javier Fernandez-Sanguino Pena discovered that the DBI library creates     temporary files in an insecure, predictable way (CAN-2005-0077). Paul     Szabo found out that 'File::Path::rmtree' is vulnerable to various race     conditions (CAN-2004-0452, CAN-2005-0448).
  Impact :

    A local attacker could create symbolic links in the temporary files     directory that point to a valid file somewhere on the filesystem. When     the DBI library or File::Path::rmtree is executed, this could be used     to overwrite or remove files with the rights of the user calling these     functions.
  Workaround :

    There are no known workarounds at this time.

ID	Name	Product	Family	Published	Updated	Severity
19112	FreeBSD : perl -- File::Path insecure file/directory permissions (c418d472-6bd1-11d9-93ca-000a95bc6fae)	Nessus	FreeBSD Local Security Checks	7/13/2005	1/6/2021	low
16073	Debian DSA-620-1 : perl - insecure temporary files / directories	Nessus	Debian Local Security Checks	1/2/2005	1/4/2021	low
80731	Oracle Solaris Third-Party Patch Update : perl-58 (cve_2012_5526_configuration_vulnerability1)	Nessus	Solaris Local Security Checks	1/19/2015	1/14/2021	high
17187	RHEL 4 : perl (RHSA-2005:103)	Nessus	Red Hat Local Security Checks	2/22/2005	11/4/2024	medium
20661	Ubuntu 4.10 : perl vulnerabilities (USN-44-1)	Nessus	Ubuntu Local Security Checks	1/15/2006	1/19/2021	low
16360	Mandrake Linux Security Advisory : perl (MDKSA-2005:031)	Nessus	Mandriva Local Security Checks	2/10/2005	1/6/2021	medium
16361	RHEL 3 : perl (RHSA-2005:105)	Nessus	Red Hat Local Security Checks	2/10/2005	1/14/2021	medium
16429	GLSA-200501-38 : Perl: rmtree and DBI tmpfile vulnerabilities	Nessus	Gentoo Local Security Checks	2/14/2005	1/6/2021	low

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