From owner-freebsd-bugs Sun Nov 22 12:19:56 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id MAA08880 for freebsd-bugs-outgoing; Sun, 22 Nov 1998 12:19:56 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-bugs@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from freefall.freebsd.org (freefall.FreeBSD.ORG [204.216.27.21]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id MAA08875 for ; Sun, 22 Nov 1998 12:19:55 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from gnats@FreeBSD.org) Received: (from gnats@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.5) id MAA23555; Sun, 22 Nov 1998 12:20:00 -0800 (PST) Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1998 12:20:00 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <199811222020.MAA23555@freefall.freebsd.org> To: freebsd-bugs@FreeBSD.ORG From: Alexander Viro Subject: Re: bin/8790: [PATCH] Buffer overrun in nvi-1.79. Reply-To: Alexander Viro Sender: owner-freebsd-bugs@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org The following reply was made to PR bin/8790; it has been noted by GNATS. From: Alexander Viro To: David Greenman Cc: FreeBSD-gnats-submit@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: bin/8790: [PATCH] Buffer overrun in nvi-1.79. Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1998 15:13:38 -0500 (EST) On Sat, 21 Nov 1998, David Greenman wrote: > > Regex used in nvi is vulnerable to the following exploit: ^^^^^ > > I'm wondering what you mean by "exploitable buffer overrun"...? You make > this sound like a security problem, but nvi isn't installed suid/sgid. Erm... First of all, there is 'secure' flag. IIRC it isn't supposed to be removable. I'm _not_ saying that it has real security implications for vi (albeit it is possible in really weird setups). But: a) It is bug (SIGSEGVing vi by search for right pattern isn't nice ;-/) b) It is exploitable bug in regex. And regex is used in suid beasts. Since GNU regex is GPLed... I suspect that Spencer's one is used in most cases. So, yes, I'm afraid that it can be security problem. If there is a regular way to submit bug reports against things like regex (i.e. piece of code used in many packages) - my apologies for lack of clues ;-( Al #include -- There are no "civil aviation for dummies" books out there and most of you would probably be scared and spend a lot of your time looking up if there was one. :-) Jordan Hubbard in c.u.b.f.m To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-bugs" in the body of the message