Perl: Vulnerabilities in perl-suid wrapper

1. Gentoo Linux Security Advisory

Advisory Reference	GLSA 200502-13 / Perl
Release Date	February 11, 2005
Latest Revision	February 11, 2005: 01
Impact	high
Exploitable	local

Package	Vulnerable versions	Unaffected versions	Architecture(s)
dev-lang/perl	< 5.8.6-r3	>= 5.8.6-r3, revision >= 5.8.5-r4, revision >= 5.8.4-r3, revision >= 5.8.2-r3	All supported architectures

Related bugreports: #80460

Synopsis

Vulnerabilities leading to file overwriting and code execution with elevated privileges have been discovered in the perl-suid wrapper.

2. Impact Information

Background

Perl is a stable, cross-platform programming language created by Larry Wall. The perl-suid wrapper allows the use of setuid perl scripts, i.e. user-callable Perl scripts which have elevated privileges. This function is enabled only if you have the perlsuid USE flag set.

Description

perl-suid scripts honor the PERLIO_DEBUG environment variable and write to that file with elevated privileges (CAN-2005-0155). Furthermore, calling a perl-suid script with a very long path while PERLIO_DEBUG is set could trigger a buffer overflow (CAN-2005-0156).

Impact

A local attacker could set the PERLIO_DEBUG environment variable and call existing perl-suid scripts, resulting in file overwriting and potentially the execution of arbitrary code with root privileges.

3. Resolution Information

Workaround

You are not vulnerable if you do not have the perlsuid USE flag set or do not use perl-suid scripts.

Resolution

All Perl users should upgrade to the latest version:

Code Listing 3.1: Resolution

# emerge --sync
# emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose dev-lang/perl

4. References

Page updated February 11, 2005

Summary: This is a Gentoo Linux Security Advisory

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