Title: IBM AIX LANG Environment Variable Buffer Overflow Vulnerability
Severity: HIGH
Description:
Versions of IBM AIX contain a vulnerability which can allow a local root compromise.
A buffer overflow in the handling of the LANG environment variable by the libi18n library makes it possible for a local user to execute arbitrary code.
Several suid programs, including aixterm, make use of this library.
An attacker may supply thoughtfully constructed values for the LANG variable, then run a privileged program which calls /usr/ccs/lib/libi18n.
The contents of LANG are copied to an internal variable without proper bounds checking. As a result, if the user-supplied input exceeds the length of the destination buffer, it will be copied over neighbouring data on the stack.
This problem makes it possible for a local user to execute arbitrary code, gaining elevated privileges and potentially root access.
Affected Products:
- IBM AIX 4.3.0
- IBM AIX 5.1.0
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