WordNet: Execution of arbitrary code

Security Team Contact Address

Updated October 07, 2008

1. Gentoo Linux Security Advisory

Advisory Reference	GLSA 200810-01 / wordnet
Release Date	October 07, 2008
Latest Revision	October 07, 2008: 01
Impact	normal
Exploitable	local, remote

Package	Vulnerable versions	Unaffected versions	Architecture(s)
app-dicts/wordnet	< 3.0-r2	>= 3.0-r2	All supported architectures

Related bugreports: #211491

Synopsis

Multiple vulnerabilities were found in WordNet, possibly allowing for the execution of arbitrary code.

2. Impact Information

Background

WordNet is a large lexical database of English.

Description

Jukka Ruohonen initially reported a boundary error within the searchwn() function in src/wn.c. A thorough investigation by the oCERT team revealed several other vulnerabilities in WordNet:

Jukka Ruohonen and Rob Holland (oCERT) reported multiple boundary errors within the searchwn() function in src/wn.c, the wngrep() function in lib/search.c, the morphstr() and morphword() functions in lib/morph.c, and the getindex() in lib/search.c, which lead to stack-based buffer overflows.
Rob Holland (oCERT) reported two boundary errors within the do_init() function in lib/morph.c, which lead to stack-based buffer overflows via specially crafted "WNSEARCHDIR" or "WNHOME" environment variables.
Rob Holland (oCERT) reported multiple boundary errors in the bin_search() and bin_search_key() functions in binsrch.c, which lead to stack-based buffer overflows via specially crafted data files.
Rob Holland (oCERT) reported a boundary error within the parse_index() function in lib/search.c, which leads to a heap-based buffer overflow via specially crafted data files.

Impact

In case the application is accessible e.g. via a web server, a remote attacker could pass overly long strings as arguments to the "wm" binary, possibly leading to the execution of arbitrary code.
A local attacker could exploit the second vulnerability via specially crafted "WNSEARCHDIR" or "WNHOME" environment variables, possibly leading to the execution of arbitrary code with escalated privileges.
A local attacker could exploit the third and fourth vulnerability by making the application use specially crafted data files, possibly leading to the execution of arbitrary code.

3. Resolution Information

Workaround

There is no known workaround at this time.

Resolution

All WordNet users should upgrade to the latest version:

Code Listing 3.1: Resolution

# emerge --sync
# emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=app-dicts/wordnet-3.0-r2"

4. References