Published:
24 May 1999
Protect yourself against future threats.
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AUSCERT External Security Bulletin Redistribution
ESB-1999.066 -- SGI Security Advisory 19990501-01-A
IRIX midikeys Vulnerability
25 May 1999
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Silicon Graphics Inc. has released the following advisory recommending a
work-around for a security vulnerability in midikeys(1) installed by
default in IRIX 6.2 and higher. This vulnerability may allow local users
to create or over-write arbitrary files on the system. This can be
leveraged to gain root privileges.
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______________________________________________________________________________
SGI Security Advisory
Title: IRIX midikeys Vulnerability
Number: 19990501-01-A
Date: May 21, 1999
______________________________________________________________________________
SGI provides this information freely to the SGI user community for its
consideration, interpretation, implementation and use. SGI recommends
that this information be acted upon as soon as possible.
SGI provides the information in this Security Advisory on an "AS-IS" basis
only, and disclaims all warranties with respect thereto, express, implied
or otherwise, including, without limitation, any warranty of merchantability
or fitness for a particular purpose. In no event shall SGI be liable for
any loss of profits, loss of business, loss of data or for any indirect,
special, exemplary, incidental or consequential damages of any kind arising
from your use of, failure to use or improper use of any of the instructions
or information in this Security Advisory.
______________________________________________________________________________
SGI acknowledges the publicly reported IRIX midikeys vulnerability and is
currently investigating.
For the protection of all our customers, SGI does not disclose, discuss
or confirm vulnerabilities until a full investigation has occurred and
any necessary patch(es) or release streams are available for all vulnerable
and supported Unicos and IRIX operating systems.
Until SGI has more definitive information to provide, customers
are encouraged to assume all security vulnerabilities as exploitable and take
appropriate steps according to local site security policies and requirements.
Steps to remove setuid on the IRIX midikeys program are found in the
Temporary Solution section below. No further information is available at
this time.
As further information becomes available, additional advisories will be
issued via the normal SGI security information distribution methods
including the wiretap mailing list.
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The steps below can be used to remove setuid from the IRIX midikeys(1)
program.
================
**** NOTE ****
================
Removal of the setuid permission disables functionality that
is not implemented or utilized at this time.
1) Verify midikeys(1) is installed on the system.
It is installed by default on IRIX 6.2 and higher.
Note that the program size may vary depending on IRIX release.
% ls -la /usr/sbin/midikeys
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root sys 218712 Mar 8 14:57 /usr/sbin/midikeys
2) Become the root user on the system.
% /bin/su -
Password:
#
3) Change the permissions on the program.
# /bin/chmod 555 /usr/sbin/midikeys
4) Verify the new permissions on the program.
# ls -la /usr/sbin/midikeys
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root sys 218712 May 20 13:57 /usr/sbin/midikeys
4) Return to previous level.
# exit
%
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- - --- SGI Security Information/Contacts ---
- - -----------------------------------------
If there are questions about this document, email can be sent to
cse-security-alert@sgi.com.
------oOo------
SGI provides security information and patches for use by the entire
SGI community. This information is freely available to any person
needing the information and is available via anonymous FTP and the Web.
The primary SGI anonymous FTP site for security information and patches
is sgigate.sgi.com (204.94.209.1). Security information and patches
are located under the directories ~ftp/security and ~ftp/patches,
respectively. The SGI Security Headquarters Web page is accessible at
the URL http://www.sgi.com/Support/security/security.html .
For issues with the patches on the FTP sites, email can be sent to
cse-security-alert@sgi.com.
For assistance obtaining or working with security patches, please
contact your SGI support provider.
------oOo------
SGI provides a free security mailing list service called wiretap and
encourages interested parties to self-subscribe to receive (via email) all
SGI Security Advisories when they are released. Subscribing to the mailing
list can be done via the Web (http://www.sgi.com/Support/security/wiretap.html)
or by sending email to SGI as outlined below.
% mail wiretap-request@sgi.com
subscribe wiretap <YourEmailAddress>
end
^d
In the example above, <YourEmailAddress> is the email address that you
wish the mailing list information sent to. The word end must be on a
separate line to indicate the end of the body of the message. The
control-d (^d) is used to indicate to the mail program that you are
finished composing the mail message.
------oOo------
SGI provides a comprehensive customer World Wide Web site. This site is
located at http://www.sgi.com/Support/security/security.html .
------oOo------
For reporting *NEW* SGI security issues, email can be sent to
security-alert@sgi.com or contact your SGI support provider. A
support contract is not required for submitting a security report.
______________________________________________________________________________
This information is provided freely to all interested parties and
may be redistributed provided that it is not altered in any way,
SGI is appropriately credited and the document retains and includes
its valid PGP signature.
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