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General discussion

Symantec AntiVirus Scan Engine Race Condition Vulnerability

Feb 17, 2004 12:37AM PST

SOFTWARE:
Symantec AntiVirus Scan Engine 4.x

DESCRIPTION:
Dr. Peter Bieringer has reported a vulnerability in Symantec
AntiVirus Scan Engine, which can be exploited by malicious, local
users to perform certain actions on a vulnerable system with
escalated privileges.

The vulnerability is caused due to a race condition when running
LiveUpdate via the shell script "liveupdate.sh". The problem is that
a log file is created insecurely with a predictable name
("/tmp/LiveUpdate.log") by default as specified in the
"/etc/liveupdate.conf" configuration file.

This can be exploited to overwrite an arbitrary file with the
privileges of the user executing the shell script via a symlink
attack when running LiveUpdate for the first time.

The vulnerability has been reported in version 4.30 for Red Hat Linux. Other versions may also be affected.

Other minor security issues during installation regarding temporary directory naming based on PIDs and known names were also reported.

SOLUTION:
Configure a secure log directory in "/etc/liveupdate.conf" before
running LiveUpdate the first time.

PROVIDED AND/OR DISCOVERED BY:
Dr. Peter Bieringer

http://secunia.com/advisories/10900/

Discussion is locked