[NT] Windows XP gethostbyaddr() NULL h_name Pointer

From: SecuriTeam (support_at_securiteam.com)
Date: 06/22/03

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Date: 22 Jun 2003 19:53:12 +0200

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      Windows XP gethostbyaddr() NULL h_name Pointer
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------

    SUMMARY

    It is possible to crash any application on Windows XP whenever
    gethostbyaddr() or WSAAsyncGetHostByAddr() function (from ws2_32.dll) are
    used for reverse name resolution (Mail and proxy servers, IRC clients,
    Peer-to-Peer clients, personal firewalls, etc). The crash occurs because a
    NULL pointer is returned as a reference instead of a valid entry.

    DETAILS

    Reproduction:
    A test application can be downloaded from
    <http://www.security.nnov.ru/files/gethostbyaddr.zip>
    http://www.security.nnov.ru/files/gethostbyaddr.zip

    1. Create zone 1.168.192.in-addr.arpa and add record (Windows 2000 DNS
    server was used, results for bind may differ):

    254 IN CNAME non.existant.name

    2. Use test program referenced

    3. Tests on Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000 and Windows XP SP1 resulted in:
    Windows NT 4.0:
    c:\>test.exe 192.168.1.254
    gethostbyaddr failed

    Windows 2000:
    C:\>test.exe 192.168.1.254
    gethostbyaddr failed

    Windows XP SP1:
    C:\>test.exe 192.168.1.254
    h_name: (null)

    We would expect that h_name never revert to a NULL value, if
    gethostbyaddr() returns a valid result.

    ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

    The information has been provided by <mailto:3APA3A@security.nnov.ru>
    3APA3A. The vulnerability was first reported by at4r ins4n3. Further
    research was done by Roland Postle, Peter Pentchev and
    <mailto:3APA3A@security.nnov.ru> 3APA3A.

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