CVE-2017-14492

Description

A heap buffer overflow was discovered in dnsmasq in the IPv6 router advertisement (RA) handling code. An attacker on the local network segment could send crafted RAs to dnsmasq which would cause it to crash or, potentially, execute arbitrary code. This issue only affected configurations using one of these options: enable-ra, ra-only, slaac, ra-names, ra-advrouter, or ra-stateless.

Statement

Red Hat OpenStack Platform includes the dnsmasq-utils RPM which does not contain this flaw's affected code-paths; Red Hat OpenStack Platform is therefore listed as not affected.

However, because all versions of Red Hat OpenStack Platform are based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, all Red Hat OpenStack Platform users should absolutely upgrade the dnsmasq RPM from Red Hat Enterprise Linux as a matter of urgency using standard update mechanisms (such as 'yum update' or 'openstack overcloud update').

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 v3 Score Breakdown

Red HatNVDcve.org
Base Score8.89.8N/A
Attack VectorAdjacent NetworkNetworkN/A
Attack ComplexityLowLowN/A
Privileges RequiredNoneNoneN/A
User InteractionNoneNoneN/A
ScopeUnchangedUnchangedN/A
ConfidentialityHighHighN/A
Integrity ImpactHighHighN/A
Availability ImpactHighHighN/A

Vector

Red Hat: CVSS:3.0/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

NVD: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Understanding the Weakness (CWE)

Availability

Technical Impact: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart; DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU); DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory)

Buffer overflows generally lead to crashes. Other attacks leading to lack of availability are possible, including putting the program into an infinite loop.

Integrity,Confidentiality,Availability,Access Control

Technical Impact: Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands; Bypass Protection Mechanism; Modify Memory

Buffer overflows often can be used to execute arbitrary code, which is usually outside the scope of a program's implicit security policy. Besides important user data, heap-based overflows can be used to overwrite function pointers that may be living in memory, pointing it to the attacker's code. Even in applications that do not explicitly use function pointers, the run-time will usually leave many in memory. For example, object methods in C++ are generally implemented using function pointers. Even in C programs, there is often a global offset table used by the underlying runtime.

Integrity,Confidentiality,Availability,Access Control,Other

Technical Impact: Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands; Bypass Protection Mechanism; Other

When the consequence is arbitrary code execution, this can often be used to subvert any other security service.

Acknowledgements

Red Hat would like to thank Felix Wilhelm (Google Security Team), Fermin J. Serna (Google Security Team), Gabriel Campana (Google Security Team), Kevin Hamacher (Google Security Team), and Ron Bowes (Google Security Team) for reporting this issue.

Frequently Asked Questions

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