CVE-2015-1781
Description
A buffer overflow flaw was found in the way glibc's gethostbyname_r() and other related functions computed the size of a buffer when passed a misaligned buffer as input. An attacker able to make an application call any of these functions with a misaligned buffer could use this flaw to crash the application or, potentially, execute arbitrary code with the permissions of the user running the application.
Statement
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 is now in Production 3 Phase of the support and maintenance life cycle. This has been rated as having Moderate security impact and is not currently planned to be addressed in future updates. For additional information, refer to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Life Cycle: https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/errata/.
Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details
Info alert:Important note
CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).
CVSS v2 Score Breakdown
| Red Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 5.1 | 6.8 | N/A |
| Attack Vector | Network | Network | N/A |
| Access Complexity | High | Medium | N/A |
| Authentication | None | None | N/A |
| Confidentiality Impact | Partial | Partial | N/A |
| Integrity Impact | Partial | Partial | N/A |
| Availability Impact | Partial | Partial | N/A |
Vector
Red Hat: AV:N/AC:H/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
NVD: AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Integrity,Availability,Confidentiality
Technical Impact: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart; Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands; Read Memory; Modify Memory
If the incorrect calculation is used in the context of memory allocation, then the software may create a buffer that is smaller or larger than expected. If the allocated buffer is smaller than expected, this could lead to an out-of-bounds read or write (CWE-119), possibly causing a crash, allowing arbitrary code execution, or exposing sensitive data.
Acknowledgements
This issue was discovered by Arjun Shankar (Red Hat).
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