From: mmaiffret at eeye.com (Marc Maiffret)
Subject: EEYE: Windows VDM TIB Local Privilege Escalation

Windows VDM TIB Local Privilege Escalation

Release Date:
April 13, 2004

Date Reported:
February 9, 2004

Severity:
Medium (Local Privilege Escalation to Kernel)

Vendor:
Microsoft

Systems Affected:
Windows NT 4.0
Windows 2000

Description:
eEye Digital Security has discovered a second local privilege escalation
vulnerability in the Windows kernel that would allow any user capable of
executing code to elevate that code to the highest possible local
privilege level (kernel). For instance, a malicious user with legitimate
access to a machine, or a remote attacker or worm payload able to obtain
unprivileged access through an unrelated exploit, could use this
vulnerability to wholly compromise a Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000
system.

The problem lies in a certain area of the Windows kernel that supports
16-bit code executing in a Virtual DOS Machine (VDM). By causing the
processor to execute code in Virtual86 (essentially "16-bit emulation")
mode without first initializing a VDM for the process, specific routines
in the Windows 2000 kernel code may be caused to dereference a null
pointer, which actually functions as a pointer to attacker-controlled
data if memory is allocated at virtual address 0. (On Windows NT 4.0,
the pointer can be controlled directly by the user.) Other pointers and
fields at offsets from the VDM data address may then be supplied with
specially-crafted data, in order to write to arbitrary locations in
kernel memory.

Technical Description:
A Virtual DOS Machine is simply a collection of data structures that,
among other things, instructs the kernel how to behave when an exception
occurs within Virtual 8086-mode code. Typically, the state of the VDM
and V86-mode code execution is handled using the NtVdmControl() API
exported by NTDLL.DLL, but it is sufficient to call NtContinue() with a
CONTEXT structure that properly supplies CS:EIP, SS:ESP, and EFLAGS with
the Virtual-8086 Mode flag (bit 17) set, in order to switch the calling
thread into Virtual 8086 mode and bypass VDM initialization entirely.

When a thread is executing in V86 mode and something bad happens, the
first thing most kernel fault handlers do is to check for the V86 flag
in the EFLAGS stored on the stack, dealing with the exception
differently based on whether or not it's set. For instance, KiTrap0D
(the General Protection Fault handler) emulates the behavior of certain
IOPL-restricted privileged instructions if they occur in V86 mode (e.g.,
POPF is considered a privileged instruction during V86-mode execution).
In some cases, it attempts to consult VDM information for the current
process -- on Windows 2000, by first dereferencing the "VdmObjects"
field of the current thread's associated EPROCESS structure
([[[FFDFF124h]+44h]+1DCh]) and then using other pointers and data
relative to that address.

As mentioned above, however, the "VdmObjects" pointer on Windows 2000
will be 0 if NtVdmControl() has not yet been used to initialize it. Of
course, because V86-mode code needs the low end of memory to be
addressable, 0 is in fact a perfectly valid base for a chunk of virtual
memory, provided that ZwAllocateVirtualMemory() is called with a base
address of 1..(4KB-1) to allocate it. So, if a region of memory is
allocated at 0 prior to causing a V86-mode fault, then the kernel will
attempt to access user-controlled memory, which it treats with as much
trust and lack of validation as a kernel-controlled data structure. Yes,
sometimes even null pointers are exploitable.

Among other things, the "VdmObjects" data structure features a pointer
to a "VDM TIB" data area ([[[[FFDFF124h]+44h]+1DCh]+98h] on Windows
2000) that contains CONTEXT structures which the kernel routine
VdmSwapContexts() references in certain circumstances. (On Windows NT
4.0, this pointer is in the user-land TIB at offset F18h and is
therefore naturally under user control.) The "VDM TIB" pointer is not
validated during the interesting portion of KiTrap0D, so it can point to
an arbitrary address in user or kernel memory. This can allow all sorts
of bad things to happen. Continuing the GPF example from above, a POPFD
instruction (for instance) encountered during V86-mode execution will
cause the effective context at the time of the fault to be stored at
offset +CD0h within the data area (+AD0h for Windows NT 4.0), then the
context at offset +A04h is retrieved for the purpose of restoring when
KiTrap0D exits. The selector values in this latter context are sanitized
in order to have CPL/DPL=3, but it doesn't really matter because the
context stored at offset +CD0h can be written to any location in user or
kernel memory, including the IDT or a process's LDT.

Of course, writing arbitrary data to an arbitrary location in kernel
memory is the last thing that happens to one's machine before it
officially becomes the attacker's machine, so the only thing left to
talk about is what an attacker can do with unfettered kernel-level
access on a system. For more information on that subject, please visit
www.rootkit.com.

Protection:
Retina Network Security Scanner has been updated to identify this
vulnerability.

Vendor Status:
Microsoft has released a patch for this vulnerability. The patch is
available at:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS04-011.mspx.

Credit:
Derek Soeder

Related Links:
Retina Network Security Scanner - Free 15 Day Trial
http://www.eeye.com/html/Products/Retina/download.html

Greetings:
VI*500; LWV, GW, and JMM; Ralf Brown and Potemkin's Hackers Group; FTM
(can't wait for the next album!!); and Victor (who got away), Lucky (who
stayed), and Lynda (who has cared for them all). =) The House of
Quality, the House of Information Technology, and the Research Projects.

Copyright (c) 1998-2004 eEye Digital Security
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Disclaimer
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In no event shall the author be liable for any direct or indirect
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Feedback
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