posix_spawn_file_actions_addopen in glibc fails to copy the path argument. Per the specification (http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/000095399/functions/posix_spawn_file_actions_addclose.html) it is supposed to. The result of not copying is that programs can easily trigger use-after-free bugs, or other situations where the path is mutated. The following program demonstrates this issue: #include <string.h> #include <assert.h> #include <fcntl.h> #include <unistd.h> #include <sys/types.h> #include <sys/wait.h> #include <stdlib.h> #include <spawn.h> #include <stdio.h> extern char *const *environ; int main() { int res; posix_spawn_file_actions_t fa; posix_spawn_file_actions_init(&fa); char *orig_path = "/tmp/afddsa"; char *path = malloc(strlen(orig_path) + 1); strcpy(path, orig_path); path[strlen(orig_path)] = '\0'; res = posix_spawn_file_actions_addopen( &fa, 1, path, O_WRONLY | O_CREAT, S_IRUSR | S_IWUSR); assert(res == 0); memset(path, 0, strlen(orig_path)); free(path); char *argv[] = {"/bin/echo", NULL}; pid_t pid; res = posix_spawn( &pid, "/bin/echo", &fa, NULL, argv, environ ); assert(res == 0); int status; wait4(pid, &status, 0, NULL); printf("%d\n", WEXITSTATUS(status)); } This bug was jointly discovered by David Reid, Alex Gaynor, and Glyph Lefkowitz. Issue is fixed in glibc 2.20: https://sourceware.org/git/gitweb.cgi?p=glibc.git;h=89e435f3559c53084498e9baad22172b64429362 Recommended additional commit for backporting: https://sourceware.org/git/?p=glibc.git;a=commit;h=35a5e3e338ae17f3d42c6 External references: https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=17048
Created glibc tracking bugs for this issue: Affects: fedora-all [bug 1109745]
Statement: The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this issue as having Low security impact. This issue is not currently planned to be addressed in future updates for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 and 5. A future update may address this flaw in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 or 7. For additional information, refer to the Issue Severity Classification: https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/.
This bug is now closed. Further updates for individual products will be reflected on the CVE page(s): https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/cve-2014-4043