[UNIX] Security Bug Found in ht://Dig htsearch CGI (DoS, File Exposure)

From: support@securiteam.com
Date: 10/16/01 

From: support@securiteam.com
To: list@securiteam.com
Subject: [UNIX] Security Bug Found in ht://Dig htsearch CGI (DoS, File Exposure)
Message-Id: <20011016170343.0FC5B138C1@mail.der-keiler.de>
Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 19:03:43 +0200 (CEST)

The following security advisory is sent to the securiteam mailing list, and can be found at the SecuriTeam web site: http://www.securiteam.com
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  Security Bug Found in ht://Dig htsearch CGI (DoS, File Exposure)
------------------------------------------------------------------------

SUMMARY

The <http://sourceforge.net/projects/htdig/> ht://Dig system is a
complete indexing and searching system for a domain or Intranet. A
security vulnerability in the product allows attackers to either cause the
program to stop responding, or to cause it to reveal the content of
sensitive files.

DETAILS

Vulnerable systems:
htDig version 3.1.0b2 and more recent, including 3.1.5 and 3.2.0b3

Immune systems:
htDig version 3.1.6 or 3.2.0b4

The htsearch CGI runs as both the CGI and as a command-line program. The
command-line program accepts the -c [filename] to read in an alternate
configuration file. On the other hand, no filtering is done to stop the
CGI program from taking command-line arguments, so a remote user can force
the CGI to stall until it times out (resulting in a DoS) or read in a
different configuration file.

For a remote exposure, a specified configuration file would need to be
readable via the web server UID, e.g. via anonymous FTP with upload
enabled or samba world-readable log files are the possible targets) to
potentially retrieve files readable by the web server UID.

For example:
nothing_found_file: /path/to/the/file/we/steal

Exploit:
http://your.host/cgi-bin/htsearch?-c/dev/zero
http://your.host/cgi-bin/htsearch?-c/path/to/my.file

Fix:
Upgrade to current prerelease versions of 3.1.6 or 3.2.0b4.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

The information has been provided by <mailto:ghutchis@wso.williams.edu>
Geoff Hutchison.

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