Title: XTerm Title Bar Buffer Overflow Vulnerability
Severity: HIGH
Description:
XFree86 is a freely available implementation of the X Window System. It is maintained by public domain, and package with many Linux, Unix and Unix clone operating systems.
A problem with X makes it possible for a remote user to execute a buffer overflow attack. The problem is in the handling of strings passed via the -title option.
The -title option used with xterm allows the user executing xterm to set the title bar of the xterm to a suitable string. However, when an excessively long string is supplied with the -title option, a buffer overflow resulting in a segmentation fault occurs.
This problem could allow an attacker to overwrite stack variables, including the return address of the process. Doing so would allow an attacker the ability to execute arbitrary code.
Since xterm is included on most systems as a setuid root executable, this makes it possible for a malicious local user to execute arbitrary code with root privileges, and gain local administrative access.
Affected Products:
- RedHat Linux 7.0.0
- RedHat Linux 7.1.0
- XFree86 X11R6 4.0.0
- XFree86 X11R6 4.0.1
- XFree86 X11R6 4.0.3
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