Re: Buffer overflow/privilege escalation in MacOS X

["Dave G." <daveg@atstake.com>]

> Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2003 11:54:02 -0800
> From: Max <rusmir@tula.net>
> To: bugtraq@securityfocus.com
> Subject: Buffer overflow/privilege escalation in MacOS X
>
> Hi,
>
> It appears that parts of MacOSX that didn't come from BSD are
> not very well written and have significant security issues.
>
> An example is a /System/Library/Filesystems/cd9660.fs/cd9660.util
> utility. It is suid root and it is vulnerable to a classic buffer
> overflow due to the lack of input validation.

Indeed.  However, due to several mitigating factors, this issue doe not 
appear to be exploitable (at least not with any of the techniques I am 
aware of).  The overflow occurs in main() and there is an unavoidable 
exit() at the end of the function.  So while you can overwrite the 
return stack frame, the process will never use your new value.

Cheers,

Dave G.