libarchive (formerly named as bsdtar): Multiple PaX Extension Header Vulnerabilities

1. Gentoo Linux Security Advisory

Advisory Reference	GLSA 200708-03 / libarchive
Release Date	August 08, 2007
Latest Revision	August 08, 2007: 02
Impact	normal
Exploitable	remote

Package	Vulnerable versions	Unaffected versions	Architecture(s)
app-arch/libarchive	< 2.2.4	>= 2.2.4	All supported architectures

Related bugreports: #184984

Synopsis

Multiple vulnerabilities were found in libarchive (formerly named as app-archive/bsdtar), possibly allowing for the execution of arbitrary code or a Denial of Service.

2. Impact Information

Background

libarchive is a library for manipulating different streaming archive formats, including certain tar variants, several cpio formats, and both BSD and GNU ar variants.

Description

CPNI, CERT-FI, Tim Kientzle, and Colin Percival reported a buffer overflow (CVE-2007-3641), an infinite loop (CVE-2007-3644), and a NULL pointer dereference (CVE-2007-3645) within the processing of archives having corrupted PaX extension headers.

Impact

An attacker can trick a user or automated system to process an archive with malformed PaX extension headers into execute arbitrary code, crash an application using the library, or cause a high CPU load.

3. Resolution Information

Workaround

There is no known workaround at this time.

Resolution

All libarchive or bsdtar users should upgrade to the latest libarchive version:

Code Listing 3.1: Resolution

# emerge --sync
# emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=app-arch/libarchive-2.2.4"

4. References

Updated August 08, 2007

Summary: This is a Gentoo Linux Security Advisory

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