Silicon Graphics Inc (SGI) - IRIX - Local Kernel Memory Disclosure/Denial of Service

[Digit Security Research <research@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

===============================ADVISORY===============================
Advisory:          Silicon Graphics Inc (SGI) - IRIX - Local Kernel
                   Memory Disclosure/Denial of Service
Advisory ID:       DSEC-2010-0001
Author:            Neil Kettle, Digit Security Ltd
Affected Software: Silicon Graphics (SGI) IRIX
Vendor URL:        http://www.sgi.com
Vendor Status:     patched
Category:          Denial of Service/Memory Disclosure/Privilege
                   Escalation
Date Reported:     2010/10/07
Last Modified:     2011/01/08
Release Date:      2011/01/08
===============================ADVISORY===============================

Description
-----------
A vulnerability has been discovered in the Silicon Graphics Inc (SGI) IRIX
kernel, an attacker exploiting this vulnerability may access arbitrary
kernel memory, or cause a Denial of Service attack via a page fault caused
by an invalid pointer dereference resulting in a call to panic().

Analysis
--------
The vulnerability exists due to a signedness condition in the
validation of a user-supplied array index value in the syssgi system call.
The vulnerable request value is SGI_XLV_ATTR_GET with a request attribute
value of XLV_ATTR_STATS.

Exploitation
------------
An exploit will be made available to the public in due course at the
following URL,

  http://www.digit-labs.org/
  http://www.digit-security.com/research.php

Technologies Affected
------------------------------
Silicon Graphics Inc (SGI) - IRIX (6.5.X)


Vendor Response
------------------------------
https://support.sgi.com/content_request/914341/index.html
(requires a valid Supportfolio login)


Disclosure Timeline
------------------------------
7th September 2010 – Vendor Disclosure
8th January 2011 – Vendor Releases Patches


Credits
------------------------------
Neil Kettle of Digit Security Ltd

Thanks
------------------------------
Micheal O'Conner of SGI for a very prompt response which gave us hope that
IRIX is not dead yet.


About Digit Security Ltd
----------------------------------
Digit Security is a computer security consultancy based in the United
Kingdom, albeit with a slight difference. The company is a co-operatively
controlled entity comprised of professionals who are experts in their
respective fields. Thus, as a corollary, nearly everyone at Digit Security
is a both a Consultant, Developer and a Director (although we prefer the
term 'equal').

Web:        www.digit-security.com
Email:      research@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx