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SYNTHESIS OF THE VULNERABILITY

A local attacker can call the ptrace() function of AIX, in order
to obtain sensitive information, or to trigger a denial of service.

Impacted products: AIX

Severity: 2/4

Creation date: 05/05/2014

Revision date: 07/05/2014

DESCRIPTION OF THE VULNERABILITY

The ptrace() function is used to monitor the execution of a
process.

The PT_LDINFO parameter indicates ptrace() to return information
about libraries. For example:
ptrace(PT_LDINFO, childpid, buffer, buffer_size, NULL);

However, if buffer_size is larger than the size of the structure
used by PT_LDINFO, data located after the end of the buffer comes
from the kernel memory. Moreover, if buffer_size is set to -1, the
kernel tries to initialize a large memory area and stops.

A local attacker can therefore call the ptrace() function of AIX,
in order to obtain sensitive information, or to trigger a denial
of service.

ACCESS TO THE COMPLETE VIGIL@NCE BULLETIN

http://vigilance.fr/vulnerability/AIX-denial-of-service-via-ptrace-14699