medium
5.1
CWE
119
Advisory Published
CVE Published
Updated

CVE-2012-4424: Buffer Overflow

First published: Tue Sep 18 2012(Updated: )

A security flaw was found in the way strcoll() interface of glibc, the GNU libc libraries, performed failsafe back to alloca() routine when malloc() function call failed previously (due to out of memory [OOM] condition for example). If an application linked against glibc was missing an application-level sanity checks for validity of strcoll() arguments and accepted untrusted input, an attacker could use this flaw to cause the particular application to crash or, potentially, execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user running the application. Upstream bug report (including the reproducer): [1] <a href="http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=14552#c0">http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=14552#c0</a> Issue / part: 1) alloca() stack overflow from [1]. References: [2] <a href="http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2012/09/07/9">http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2012/09/07/9</a> [3] <a href="http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2012/09/07/15">http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2012/09/07/15</a> [4] <a href="http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2012/09/10/1">http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2012/09/10/1</a> [5] <a href="http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2012/09/10/3">http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2012/09/10/3</a> [6] <a href="http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2012/09/13/16">http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2012/09/13/16</a>

Credit: secalert@redhat.com

Affected SoftwareAffected VersionHow to fix
GNU C Library<=2.17
GNU C Library=2.0
GNU C Library=2.0.1
GNU C Library=2.0.2
GNU C Library=2.0.3
GNU C Library=2.0.4
GNU C Library=2.0.5
GNU C Library=2.0.6
GNU C Library=2.1
GNU C Library=2.1.1
GNU C Library=2.1.1.6
GNU C Library=2.1.2
GNU C Library=2.1.3
GNU C Library=2.1.9
GNU C Library=2.10.1
GNU C Library=2.11
GNU C Library=2.11.1
GNU C Library=2.11.2
GNU C Library=2.11.3
GNU C Library=2.12.1
GNU C Library=2.12.2
GNU C Library=2.13
GNU C Library=2.14
GNU C Library=2.14.1
GNU C Library=2.15
GNU C Library=2.16

Remedy

http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=14547

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Reference Links

Frequently Asked Questions

  • What is the severity of CVE-2012-4424?

    CVE-2012-4424 is classified as a medium severity vulnerability.

  • How do I fix CVE-2012-4424?

    To fix CVE-2012-4424, update the GNU C Library (glibc) to version 2.18 or later.

  • What causes the CVE-2012-4424 vulnerability?

    CVE-2012-4424 is caused by a flaw in the strcoll() function of glibc when handling memory allocation failures.

  • Which versions of glibc are affected by CVE-2012-4424?

    CVE-2012-4424 affects glibc versions prior to 2.18, including all versions up to and including 2.17.

  • What impact does CVE-2012-4424 have on affected systems?

    CVE-2012-4424 may lead to unexpected behavior or crashes in applications linked against the vulnerable version of glibc.

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