bugtraq - Re: Format String Vulnerabilities in Perl Programs

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.63.0512032010540.6351@workstation9.wi.securepipe.com>
Date: Sat, 3 Dec 2005 20:49:47 -0600 (CST)
From: "Michael J. Pomraning" <mjp@...urepipe.com>
To: "Steven M. Christey" <coley@...re.org>
Cc: full-disclosure@...ts.grok.org.uk, bugtraq@...urityfocus.com
Subject: Re: Format String Vulnerabilities in Perl Programs

On Fri, 2 Dec 2005, Steven M. Christey wrote:

> In particular, the sprintf() and printf() functions in Perl can be
> abused if an attacker can control the contents of the format string.
> Since similar functions are used in C, it is possible that these
> functions will be used more frequently by C programmers who are new to
> Perl.
<<SNIP>> 
>  - for each programming language, identify and publicize all builtin
>    or common library functions that use format strings.

For Perl projects, I'd also nominate syslog(), from the standard Sys::Syslog
module, for special attention.  It's common in *NIX environments regardless
of programmers' backgrounds and is extremely likely to be called with
untrusted data interpolated directly in the format string argument --
syslog("info", "A user said $user_input"), for example.

Regards,
Mike
_______________________________________________
Full-Disclosure - We believe in it.
Charter: http://lists.grok.org.uk/full-disclosure-charter.html
Hosted and sponsored by Secunia - http://secunia.com/