The NEEDBITS macro in the inflate_dynamic function in inflate.c for unzip can be invoked using invalid buffers, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) and possibly execute arbitrary code via unknown vectors that trigger a free of uninitialized or previously-freed data.

From Red Hat Security Advisory 2008:0196 :

Updated unzip packages that fix a security issue are now available.

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

The unzip utility is used to list, test, or extract files from a zip archive.

An invalid pointer flaw was found in unzip. If a user ran unzip on a specially crafted file, an attacker could execute arbitrary code with that user's privileges. (CVE-2008-0888)

Red Hat would like to thank Tavis Ormandy of the Google Security Team for reporting this issue.

All unzip users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which contain a backported patch to resolve this issue.

An invalid pointer flaw was found in unzip. If a user ran unzip on a specially crafted file, an attacker could execute arbitrary code with that user's privileges. (CVE-2008-0888)

The remote host is running a version of Mac OS X 10.5 that does not have Security Update 2010-002 applied.

This security update contains fixes for the following products :

  - AppKit
  - Application Firewall
  - AFP Server
  - Apache
  - ClamAV
  - CoreTypes
  - CUPS
  - curl
  - Cyrus IMAP
  - Cyrus SASL
  - Disk Images
  - Directory Services
  - Event Monitor
  - FreeRADIUS
  - FTP Server
  - iChat Server
  - Image RAW
  - Libsystem
  - Mail
  - Mailman
  - OS Services
  - Password Server
  - perl
  - PHP
  - PS Normalizer
  - Ruby
  - Server Admin
  - SMB
  - Tomcat
  - unzip
  - vim
  - Wiki Server
  - X11
  - xar

a. VMware Tools Local Privilege Escalation on Windows-based guest OS

   The VMware Tools Package provides support required for shared folders    (HGFS) and other features.

   An input validation error is present in the Windows-based VMware    HGFS.sys driver.   Exploitation of this flaw might result in    arbitrary code execution on the guest system by an unprivileged    guest user.  It doesn't matter on what host the Windows guest OS    is running, as this is a guest driver vulnerability and not a    vulnerability on the host.

   The HGFS.sys driver is present in the guest operating system if the    VMware Tools package is loaded.  Even if the host has HGFS disabled    and has no shared folders, Windows-based guests may be affected. This    is regardless if a host supports HGFS.

   This issue could be mitigated by removing the VMware Tools package    from Windows based guests.  However this is not recommended as it    would impact usability of the product.

   NOTE: Installing the new hosted release or ESX patches will not          remediate the issue.  The VMware Tools packages will need          to be updated on each Windows-based guest followed by a          reboot of the guest system.

   VMware would like to thank iDefense and Stephen Fewer of Harmony    Security for reporting this issue to us.

   The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org)    has assigned the name CVE-2007-5671 to this issue.

b. Privilege escalation on ESX or Linux based hosted operating systems

   This update fixes a security issue related to local exploitation of    an untrusted library path vulnerability in vmware-authd. In order to    exploit this vulnerability, an attacker must have local access and    the ability to execute the set-uid vmware-authd binary on an affected    system. Exploitation of this flaw might result in arbitrary code    execution on the Linux host system by an unprivileged user.

   VMware would like to thank iDefense for reporting this issue to us.

   The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org)    has assigned the name CVE-2008-0967 to this issue.

c. Openwsman Invalid Content-Length Vulnerability

   Openwsman is a system management platform that implements the Web    Services Management protocol (WS-Management). It is installed and    running by default. It is used in the VMware Management Service    Console and in ESXi.

   The openwsman management service on ESX 3.5 and ESXi 3.5 is vulnerable    to a privilege escalation vulnerability, which may allow users with    non-privileged ESX or Virtual Center accounts to gain root privileges.

   To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker would need a local ESX    account or a VirtualCenter account with the Host.Cim.CimInteraction    permission.

   Systems with no local ESX accounts and no VirtualCenter accounts with    the Host.Cim.CimInteraction permission are not vulnerable.

   This vulnerability cannot be exploited by users without valid login    credentials.

   Discovery: Alexander Sotirov, VMware Security Research

   The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org)    has assigned the name CVE-2008-2097 to this issue.

d. VMware VIX Application Programming Interface (API) Memory Overflow    Vulnerabilities

   The VIX API (also known as 'Vix') is an API that lets users write scripts    and programs to manipulate virtual machines.

   Multiple buffer overflow vulnerabilities are present in the VIX API.
   Exploitation of these vulnerabilities might result in a privilege    escalation on the host system. This exploit scenario is relevant for all    affected products. On VC, ESX30x, and ESX35, users need to have the VM    Interaction Privilege in order to exploit the vulnerability.

   Exploitation of these vulnerabilities might also result in code execution on    the host system from the guest system or on the service console in ESX Server    from the guest operating system. This exploit scenario is relevant for    Workstation 6.0.x (version 6.0.3 and below), Player 2.0.x (version 2.0.3 and    below), ACE 2.0.x (version 2.0.3 and below), Server 1.0.x (version 1.0.5 and    below), and ESX3.5. The parameter 'vix.inGuest.enable' in the VMware    configuration file must be set to true to allow for exploitation on these    products. Note that the parameter 'vix-inGuest.enable' is set to false by    default.

   The parameter 'vix.inGuest.enable' is present in the    following products :

     VMware Workstation 6.0.2 and higher      VMware ACE 6.0.2 and higher      VMware Server 1.06 and higher      VMware Fusion 1.1.2 and higher      ESX Server 3.0 and higher      ESX Server 3.5 and higher

   In previous versions of VMware products where the VIX API was introduced,    the VIX API couldn't be disabled.

   This vulnerability is present in ESX and the hosted products even if you    have not installed the VIX API. To patch your system you will need to    update to the new hosted product version or to apply the appropriate ESX    patch. It is not necessary to update the VIX API if you have installed    the VIX API.

   VMware would like to thank Andrew Honig of the Department of    Defense for reporting this issue.

   The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org)    has assigned the name CVE-2008-2100 to this issue.

II Service Console rpm updates

 NOTE: ESXi and hosted products are not affected by any service console        security updates

 a. Security update for cyrus-sasl

   Updated cyrus-sasl package for the ESX Service Console corrects a security    issue found in the DIGEST-MD5 authentication mechanism of Cyrus'    implementation of Simple Authentication and Security Layer (SASL). As a    result of this issue in the authentication mechanism, a remote    unauthenticated attacker might be able to cause a denial of service error    on the service console.

   The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has    assigned the name CVE-2006-1721 to this issue.

 b. Security update for tcltk

   An input validation flaw was discovered in Tk's GIF image handling. A    code-size value read from a GIF image was not properly validated before    being used, leading to a buffer overflow. A specially crafted GIF file    could use this to cause a crash or, potentially, execute code with the    privileges of the application using the Tk graphical toolkit.

   The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has    assigned the name CVE-2008-0553 to this issue.

   A buffer overflow flaw was discovered in Tk's animated GIF image handling.
   An animated GIF containing an initial image smaller than subsequent images    could cause a crash or, potentially, execute code with the privileges of    the application using the Tk library.

   The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has    assigned the name CVE-2007-5378 to this issue.

   A flaw first discovered in the Tcl regular expression engine used in the    PostgreSQL database server, resulted in an infinite loop when processing    certain regular expressions.

   The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has    assigned the name CVE-2007-4772 to this issue.

 c. Security update for unzip

   This patch includes a moderate security update to the service console that    fixes a flaw in unzip. An attacker could execute malicious code with a    user's privileges if the user ran unzip on a file designed to leverage    this flaw.

   The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has    assigned the name CVE-2008-0888 to this issue.

 d. Security update for krb5

   KDC in MIT Kerberos 5 (krb5kdc) does not set a global variable    for some krb4 message types, which allows remote attackers to    cause a denial of service (crash) and possibly execute arbitrary    code via crafted messages that trigger a NULL pointer dereference    or double-free.

   The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org)    has assigned the name CVE-2008-0062 to this issue.

   NOTE: ESX doesn't contain the krb5kdc binary and is not vulnerable          to this issue.

   The Kerberos 4 support in KDC in MIT Kerberos 5 (krb5kdc) does not    properly clear the unused portion of a buffer when generating an    error message, which might allow remote attackers to obtain    sensitive information, aka 'Uninitialized stack values.'

   The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org)    has assigned the name CVE-2008-0063 to this issue.

   NOTE: ESX doesn't contain the krb5kdc binary and is not vulnerable          to this issue.

   Buffer overflow in the RPC library (lib/rpc/rpc_dtablesize.c) used    by libgssrpc and kadmind in MIT Kerberos 5 (krb5) 1.2.2, and probably    other versions before 1.3, when running on systems whose unistd.h    does not define the FD_SETSIZE macro, allows remote attackers to cause    a denial of service (crash) and possibly execute arbitrary code by    triggering a large number of open file descriptors.

   The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org)    has assigned the name CVE-2008-0948 to this issue.

Tavis Ormandy of Google Security discovered an invalid pointer flaw in unzip that could lead to the execution of arbitrary code with the privileges of the user running unzip.

The updated packages have been patched to correct this issue.

The remote host is affected by the vulnerability described in GLSA-200804-06 (UnZip: User-assisted execution of arbitrary code)

    Tavis Ormandy of the Google Security Team discovered that the NEEDBITS     macro in the inflate_dynamic() function in the file inflate.c can be     invoked using invalid buffers, which can lead to a double free.
  Impact :

    Remote attackers could entice a user or automated system to open a     specially crafted ZIP file that might lead to the execution of     arbitrary code or a Denial of Service.
  Workaround :

    There is no known workaround at this time.

Tavis Ormandy discovered that unzip did not correctly clean up pointers. If a user or automated service was tricked into processing a specially crafted ZIP archive, a remote attacker could execute arbitrary code with user privileges.

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.

Tavis Ormandy discovered that unzip, when processing specially crafted ZIP archives, could pass invalid pointers to the C library's free routine, potentially leading to arbitrary code execution (CVE-2008-0888 ).

Updated unzip packages that fix a security issue are now available.

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

The unzip utility is used to list, test, or extract files from a zip archive.

An invalid pointer flaw was found in unzip. If a user ran unzip on a specially crafted file, an attacker could execute arbitrary code with that user's privileges. (CVE-2008-0888)

Red Hat would like to thank Tavis Ormandy of the Google Security Team for reporting this issue.

All unzip users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which contain a backported patch to resolve this issue.

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
67672	Oracle Linux 3 : unzip (ELSA-2008-0196)	Nessus	Oracle Linux Local Security Checks	high
60375	Scientific Linux Security Update : unzip on SL3.x i386/x86_64	Nessus	Scientific Linux Local Security Checks	high
45373	Mac OS X Multiple Vulnerabilities (Security Update 2010-002)	Nessus	MacOS X Local Security Checks	critical
40378	VMSA-2008-0009 : Updates to VMware Workstation, VMware Player, VMware ACE, VMware Fusion, VMware Server, VMware VIX API, VMware ESX, VMware ESXi resolve critical security issues	Nessus	VMware ESX Local Security Checks	high
37575	Mandriva Linux Security Advisory : unzip (MDVSA-2008:068)	Nessus	Mandriva Local Security Checks	high
31837	GLSA-200804-06 : UnZip: User-assisted execution of arbitrary code	Nessus	Gentoo Local Security Checks	high
31639	Ubuntu 6.06 LTS / 6.10 / 7.04 / 7.10 : unzip vulnerability (USN-589-1)	Nessus	Ubuntu Local Security Checks	high
31628	Debian DSA-1522-1 : unzip - programming error	Nessus	Debian Local Security Checks	high
31619	RHEL 2.1 / 3 : unzip (RHSA-2008:0196)	Nessus	Red Hat Local Security Checks	high
31610	CentOS 3 : unzip (CESA-2008:0196)	Nessus	CentOS Local Security Checks	high

Detections

Analytics

CVE-2008-0888

critical

Tenable Plugins

high

high

critical

high

high

high

high

high

high

high