RAR: Format string and buffer overflow vulnerabilities

Security Team Contact Address

Updated November 13, 2005

1. Gentoo Linux Security Advisory

Package	Vulnerable versions	Unaffected versions	Architecture(s)
app-arch/rar	< 3.5.1	>= 3.5.1	All supported architectures

Related bugreports: #111926

RAR contains a format string error and a buffer overflow vulnerability that may be used to execute arbitrary code.

2. Impact Information

RAR is a powerful archive manager that can decompress RAR, ZIP and other files, and can create new archives in RAR and ZIP file format.

Tan Chew Keong reported about two vulnerabilities found in RAR:

A format string error exists when displaying a diagnostic error message that informs the user of an invalid filename in an UUE/XXE encoded file.
Some boundary errors in the processing of malicious ACE archives can be exploited to cause a buffer overflow.

A remote attacker could exploit these vulnerabilities by enticing a user to:

When the user performs these actions, the arbitrary code of the attacker's choice will be executed.

3. Resolution Information

There is no known workaround at this time.

All RAR users should upgrade to the latest version:

Code Listing 3.1: Resolution

# emerge --sync
# emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=app-arch/rar-3.5.1"

4. References