Topic: unsafe fgets() using in qpopper Software affected: qpopper 3.0 fc2, qpopper 2.53 and probably others Description: malicious user can remotely post message with spoofed or incorrect headers (including "Received:" one) and in some cases bypass virus checking. This can be used for sending trojans or to attack vulnerabilities in MUA. Status: Vendor contacted, bug scheduled to be patched in next release, FreeBSD port patched. Background: In most unix systems e-mail delivered to user is usually stored in his mailbox, which has predefined format (so-called "unix mailbox" or "berkley mailbox"). This mailbox holds messages in plain format separated by empty line ("\n") and specially formed "From " header. The pattern of the next message in mailbox is "\n\nForm ". Then local mail programs (f.e. mail.local) delivers message to user's mailbox it searches for this pattern and if message contains one "From " will be commented out by '>' and additional '\n' will be added to message if necessary. This assumes mailbox integrity and protects from e-mail spoofing. Problem description: qpopper has vulnerability which allows for malicious user to generate his own "From " with followed email headers and text. The problem is in the way qpopper reads data from mailbox. Qpopper uses fgets() or fgets()-like routine, mfgets(), which reads data from mailbox into the fixed 1024 byte buffer and returns string in case either '\n' character received or 1023 bytes read. Malicious user can put text like (without leading spaces): AAAA...AAA(string of 1023 symbols)\n From user Wed Dec 2 05:53 -0700 1992 In this case fgets() will return 3 strings: "AAAA...AAA(string of 1023)symbols", without '\n', "\n", "From user Wed Dec 2 05:53 -0700 1992" and this will be recognized as a beginning of the new message in the mailbox. Text after "From " string will be recognized as a headers and text of the next message, allowing to generate any headers and text. Additionally, this "internal" messages will be treated by any software as a plain text inside message, without any MIME attachments. This allows to bypass virus checking in case antiviral tools scans only attached files. Possible temporary fix for qpopper 3.0 fc2 (not tested): --- pop_dropcopy.c Sat Mar 18 02:31:11 2000 +++ pop_dropcopy.c Wed Apr 12 18:11:11 2000 @@ -205,6 +205,8 @@ int newline = 1; +int isbreaked = 0; +int wasbreaked = 0; /* * 0 for not a from line @@ -229,6 +231,14 @@ /* If the previous line was not a newline then just return */ /* From message separators are preceeded by a newline */ + if (isbreaked) { + wasbreaked = 1; + return ( 0 ); + } + if (wasbreaked) { + wasbreaked = 0; + return ( 0 ); + } if ( *cp == '\n' ) { newline = 1; return ( 0 ); @@ -1593,9 +1603,13 @@ if( size <= 0 ) { return NULL; } + isbreaked = 1; while( --size && ((c = getc(stream)) != EOF) ) { if( (*p = (char)c) == '\0' ) *p = ' '; - if( *p++ == '\n' ) break; + if( *p++ == '\n' ) { + isbreaked = 0; + break; + } } if( p == s ) return NULL; *p = '\0'; Additional Info: mail.local also uses fgets() for reading input message, but default buffer size is 2048, so "From " will not be commented and problem can be exploited. If another local mailer is used with same behavior and buffer size 1024 or mailer splits strings of 1024 bytes this problem couldn't be exploited. http://www.security.nnov.ru /\_/\ { . . } |\ +--oQQo->{ ^ }<-----+ \ | 3APA3A U 3APA3A } +-------------o66o--+ / |/ You know my name - look up my number (The Beatles)