Title: Gaim Remote Buffer Overflow Vulnerability
Severity: HIGH
Description:
Gaim is an interactive chat client which supports AOL's Instant Messenger service, and runs on a number of Unix-based platforms.
When set to use the OSCAR protocol, 0.10.x versions of the Gaim client up to and including 0.10.3 fail to properly size-check embedded HTML tags in received messages. Such tags, if made by an attacker to exceed approximately 4100 characters, can create a buffer overflow condition. As a result, the excessive data copied onto the stack can overwrite critical parts of the stack frame such as the calling functions' return address. Since this data is supplied by the user it can be crafted in such a way that it alters the program's flow of execution. If properly exploited, this can yield root privileges to the attacker.
For a number of reasons it is believed that this vulnerability is quite difficult to exploit. See Stan Bubrouski's (stan@ccs.neu.edu) message in the reference section for details.
Affected Products:
- Rob Flynn Gaim 0.10.0 x
- Rob Flynn Gaim 0.10.3
References:
- Rob Flynn <rflynn@blueridge.net>: Gaim website
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