Title: Elm Local TERM Environment Variable Buffer Overrun Vulnerability
Severity: MODERATE
Description:
Elm is a mail user agent designed for use with UNIX based operating systems. Depending on the system Elm may be installed with the setgid bit.
A buffer overrun has been discovered in Elm. The problem occurs due to insufficient bounds checking performed before copying user-supplied data into an internal memory buffer. Specifically, a TERM environment variable containing approximately 41 bytes of data would cause a buffer within Elm to be overrun.
This could potentially allow an attacker to corrupt adjacent stack memory variables. As a result, an attacker may be capable of executing arbitrary code with the privileges of elm.
As Elm is installed setgid on some systems, the exploitation of this vulnerability could potentially allow for the elevation of local privileges.
It should be noted that the FreeBSD 4.7-RELEASE korean ports includes a vulnerable Elm 2.4 port.
Affected Products:
- Elm Development Group ELM 2.3.0
- Elm Development Group ELM 2.4.0
- Slackware Linux 3.6.0
- Slackware Linux 4.0.0
References:
- insecure.org: Elm 2.3 and 2.4 curses overflow
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