Multiple Buffer Overflow Vulnerabilities in Informix

NGSSoftware Insight Security Research Advisory

Name: Multiple Buffer Overflow Vulnerabilities in Informix
Systems Affected: All versions of Informix
Severity: High
Vendor URL: http://www.ibm.com/
Author: David Litchfield [ [email protected] ]
Date of Public Advisory: 2nd August 2006
Advisory number: #NISR02082006D
CVEID: http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2006-3857
Advisory URL: http://www.ngssoftware.com/research/

Description

Informix Dynamic Server is a database developed by IBM. During a security
assessment of Informix multiple buffer overflow vulnerabilities were
discovered that could be exploited via SQL or the protocol.

Details

At the SQL level the following SQL statements are vulnerable to overflow.

SET DEBUG FILE
IFX_FILE_TO_FILE
FILETOCLOB
LOTOFILE
DBINFO

At the protocol level, overflows were found in the following C functions

_sq_remview
_sq_remproc
_sq_remperms
_sq_distfetch
_sq_dcatalog

Each of these call the getname() function. The getname() function takes a
source string and copies it to a destination buffer - much like strcpy().

Each of these overflows are trivially exploitable. All have been assigned to
CVE-2006-3857.

Further to these overflows, unhandled exceptions can be triggered with a
NULL pointer in the _sq_scroll and _sq_bbind functions at the protocol
level. Exploitation of these two flaws would result in a DoS condition.
These two issues have been assigned to CVE-2006-3856.

Fix Information

IBM was alerted to these flaws between the 6th and the 18th January 2005.
Patches have now been made available.

NGSSQuirreL for Informix, an advanced vulnerability assessment scanner
designed specifically for Informix, can be used to accurately determine
whether your servers are vulnerable to this flaw. More information about
NGSSQuirreL for Informix can be found here
http://www.ngssoftware.com/products/database-security/ngs-squirrel-informix.php

About NGSSoftware

NGSSoftware develops vulnerability assessment and compliancy tools for
database servers including Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, DB2, Sybase and
Informix. Headquartered in the United Kingdom NGS has offices in London, St.
Andrews (UK), Sydney, Brisbane, and Perth (Australia) and Texas in the
United States; NGSConsulting provide services to some of the largest and
most demanding organizations around the globe.

http://www.ngssoftware.com/

Telephone +44 208 401 0070
Fax +44 208 401 0076

[email protected]