[NT] Half-Life Remote Server and Client Crashes

From: SecuriTeam (support_at_securiteam.com)
Date: 07/14/04

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Date: 14 Jul 2004 11:24:07 +0200

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      Half-Life Remote Server and Client Crashes
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------

    SUMMARY

    Half-Life is one of the most successful FPS (First Person Shooter) games
    in existence. Even though it dates back to 1998, Half-Life is still one of
    the most played games and with its various expansions and MODs is still
    being played by many people all around the world.

    A bug has been found by Terry Henning (a.k.a. Soul Beaver) in both the
    server and client modules of Half-Life which can be used by a remote
    attacker to crash either and cause a denial of service condition.

    DETAILS

    Vulnerable Systems:
     * Half-Life version that dates prior to June 7th (Steam and non-Steam)

    Immune Systems:
     * Half-Life version after June 7th (Steam only)

    The crashing of either the server or client is due to a malformed packet
    that is mishandled by the application. Each Half-Life packet is composed
    by the first 8 bytes used to track packets and to reassemble splitted
    data, but this second feature is the cause of the crash because the game
    doesn't correctly manage the empty splitted packets (so composed by the
    first 8 bytes only). The crash is the effect of the copying of data to a
    read-only part of memory (.reloc of swds.dll).

    An example of the first bytes comprising such a malformed packet is:
      "\xFE\xFF\xFF\xFF\x00\x00\x00\x00"

    A utility that can send malformed packets is available at
    <http://aluigi.altervista.org/poc/hlboom.zip>
    http://aluigi.altervista.org/poc/hlboom.zip.

    Patch Availability:
    A patch for Steam users is available since June 7th. The last patch for
    un-Steamed Half-Life is 1.1.1.0 and is no longer supported.

    ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

    The information has been provided by <mailto:aluigi@autistici.org> Luigi
    Auriemma.
    The original article can be found at:
    <http://aluigi.altervista.org/adv/hlboom-adv.txt>
    http://aluigi.altervista.org/adv/hlboom-adv.txt

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