HylaFAX Security Advisory 11 November 2003
Subject: Format String Vulnerability Fixed
Introduction:
HylaFAX is a mature (est. 1991) enterprise-class open source software package for sending and receiving facsimiles as well as for sending alpha-numeric pages. It runs on a wide variety of UNIX-like platforms including Linux, BSD (including Mac OS X), SunOS and Solaris, SCO, IRIX, AIX, and HP-UX. See http://www.hylafax.org for more details.
Problem Description and Impact:
The SuSE Security Team recently audited the HylaFAX daemon (hfaxd) and discovered a remotely exploitable format string vulnerability.
A vulnerable host must have set the 0x002 bit for the ServerTracing configuration parameter. This is not the default setting for the HylaFAX installation, but it is not an uncommon configuration when troubleshooting HylaFAX operation.
Status:
HylaFAX development has released the 4.1.8 patch-level code release which includes the fix for this format string vulnerability as contributed by SuSE. All users are strongly encouraged to upgrade.
Availability:
HylaFAX 4.1.8 is available by anonymous ftp at:
ftp://ftp.hylafax.org/source/hylafax-4.1.8.tar.gz
(Binary versions will shortly be made available)
The fix is available in patch form at:
http://bugs.hylafax.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=468
There is no known exploitation in the wild of this vulnerability.
Thanks:
Many thanks go to the SuSE Security Team and Sebastian Krahmer for their commendable handling of this vulnerability. Thanks also go to Michael O'Connor at SGI for his advice in establishing the security contact.
Contact:
Matters pertaining to HylaFAX security should be addressed to HylaFAX-CERT <security@hylafax.org>
-- Lee Howard HylaFAX Developer lee.howard@hylafax.org
