MadWifi: Kernel driver buffer overflow — GLSA 200612-09

MadWifi is vulnerable to a buffer overflow that could potentially lead to the remote execution of arbitrary code with root privileges.

Affected packages

net-wireless/madwifi-ng on all architectures
Affected versions < 0.9.2.1
Unaffected versions >= 0.9.2.1

Background

MadWifi (Multiband Atheros Driver for Wireless Fidelity) provides a Linux kernel device driver for Atheros-based Wireless LAN devices.

Description

Laurent Butti, Jerome Raznieski and Julien Tinnes reported a buffer overflow in the encode_ie() and the giwscan_cb() functions from ieee80211_wireless.c.

Impact

A remote attacker could send specially crafted wireless WPA packets containing malicious RSN Information Headers (IE) that could potentially lead to the remote execution of arbitrary code as the root user.

Workaround

There is no known workaround at this time.

Resolution

All MadWifi users should upgrade to the latest version:

 # emerge --sync
 # emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=net-wireless/madwifi-ng-0.9.2.1"

References

Release date
December 10, 2006

Latest revision
December 10, 2006: 01

Severity
high

Exploitable
remote

Bugzilla entries