________________________________________________________________________________ Sun Microsystems, Inc. Security Bulletin Bulletin Number: #00146 Date: July 15, 1997 Cross-Ref: Title: Vulnerability in ping ________________________________________________________________________________ Permission is granted for the redistribution of this Bulletin, so long as the Bulletin is not edited and is attributed to Sun Microsystems. Portions may also be excerpted for re-use in other security advisories so long as proper attribution is included. Any other use of this information without the express written consent of Sun Microsystems is prohibited. Sun Microsystems expressly disclaims all liability for any misuse of this information by any third party. ________________________________________________________________________________ 1. Bulletins Topics Sun announces the release of patches for Solaris 2.5.1 and 2.5 (SunOS 5.5.1 and 5.5), which relate to a vulnerability in the IP driver via the ping utility. Sun estimates that the release of patches for Solaris 2.4 and 2.3 (SunOS 5.4 and 5.3) which relate to the same vulnerability will be available within 8 weeks and 16 weeks respectively of the date of this bulletin. Sun strongly recommends that you install the patches listed in section 5 immediately on systems running SunOS 5.5.1 and 5.5. Sun also strongly recommends that you install the workaround listed in section 4 immediately on systems running SunOS 5.4 or 5.3. Exploit information is publicly available. 2. Who is Affected Vulnerable: SunOS versions 5.5.1, 5.5.1_x86, 5.5, 5.5_x86, 5.4, 5.4_x86, and 5.3. Not vulnerable: All other supported versions of SunOS The vulnerability is fixed in the upcoming release of Solaris. 3. Understanding the Vulnerability The ping program uses the ICMP protocol's ECHO_REQUEST datagram to elicit an ICMP ECHO_RESPONSE from specified hosts. The vulnerability entails sending a ping request to a multicast address through the loopback interface. Part of the effect is that the system pings itself. However, the incoming queue pointer is not yet initialized when the packet is received causing the system to panic. The fix, as delivered via the patches mentioned in section 5, is to initialize the queue pointer to the correct queue at the time the packet is received. 4. Workaround Sun recommends as a temporary workaround that all systems be protected by executing the following command as root: /usr/sbin/ndd -set /dev/ip ip_respond_to_echo_broadcast 0 Adding the above command to the file /etc/init.d/inetinit makes the workaround effective across reboots. 5. List of Patches The vulnerability in ping is fixed by the following patches: OS version Patch ID __________ ________ SunOS 5.5.1 103630-09 SunOS 5.5.1_x86 103631-09 SunOS 5.5 103169-12 SunOS 5.5_x86 103170-12 SunOS 5.4 101945-52 (to be released in 8 weeks) SunOS 5.4_x86 101946-46 (to be released in 8 weeks) SunOS 5.3 101318-89 (to be released in 16 weeks) 6. Checksum Table The checksum table below shows the BSD checksums (SunOS 5.x: /usr/ucb/sum), SVR4 checksums (SunOS 5.x: /usr/bin/sum), and the MD5 digital signatures for the above-mentioned patches that are available from: These checksums may not apply if you obtain patches from your answer centers. File Name BSD SVR4 MD5 _______________ _________ __________ ________________________________ 103630-09.tar.Z 48744 656 23098 1311 BF33542DAD2C1455C6B94300E65B7447 103631-09.tar.Z 10984 573 53999 1145 B8CF75F23D243F9A8947A8FA05CC82BE 103169-12.tar.Z 62974 650 32631 1299 651D2F25A65FDA49FCED0C68CBD7EA32 103170-12.tar.Z 54167 568 15267 1135 9C31DCECA19A8AB621A11B13B4F80986 ________________________________________________________________________________ Sun acknowledges, with thanks, Mark Henderson for providing the workaround referenced in this bulletin. ________________________________________________________________________________ APPENDICES A. Patches listed in this bulletin are available to all Sun customers via World Wide Web at: Customers with Sun support contracts can also obtain patches from local Sun answer centers and SunSITEs worldwide. B. Sun security bulletins are available via World Wide Web at: C. 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