[Pardus-security] [PLSA 2010-43] Curl: Excessive Data Length in Callback Function

Eren Turkay eren at pardus.org.tr
Mon Mar 29 22:10:45 EEST 2010


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Pardus Linux Security Advisory 2010-43            security at pardus.org.tr
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      Date: 2010-03-29
  Severity: 3
      Type: Local
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Summary
=======

A security issue has been fixed in cURL / libcURL, which can potentially
be exploited by malicious people to cause a DoS (Denial of Service)  or 
compromise an application using the library 


Description
===========

When downloading data, libcurl hands it over to the application using a 
callback that is registered by the client software. libcurl  will  then 
call that function repeatedly with data until the transfer is complete. 
The callback is documented to  receive  a  maximum  data  size  of  16K 
(CURL_MAX_WRITE_SIZE). 



Using the affected libcurl version to download compressed content  over 
HTTP, an application can ask libcurl to automatically uncompress  data. 
When doing so, libcurl can wrongly send data up to 64K in size  to  the 
callback which thus is much larger than the documented maximum size. An 
application that blindly trusts libcurl's max limit for a fixed  buffer 
size or similar is  then  a  possible  target  for  a  buffer  overflow 
vulnerability. 


Affected packages:

    curl-7.19.6-18-6, all before 2009

    curl-7.19.6-18-8, all before 2008



Resolution
==========

There are update(s) for  curl-7.19.6-18-6,  curl-7.19.6-18-8.  You  can 
update them via Package Manager or with a single command from console: 

    pisi up curl-7.19.6-18-6 curl-7.19.6-18-8

References
==========

  * http://bugs.pardus.org.tr/show_bug.cgi?id=12439
  * http://curl.haxx.se/docs/adv_20100209.html

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