MIME Conversion |
| Attack Pattern ID: 42 (Detailed Attack Pattern Completeness: Complete) | Typical Severity: High | Status: Draft |
DescriptionSummary
An attacker exploits a weakness in the MIME conversion routine to cause a buffer overflow and gain control over the mail server machine. The MIME system is designed to allow various different information formats to be interpreted and sent via e-mail. Attack points exist when data are converted to MIME compatible format and back.
Attack Execution Flow
Determine whether the mail server is unpatched and is potentially vulnerable to one of the known MIME conversion buffer overflows (e.g. Sendmail 8.8.3 and 8.8.4).
Identify places in the system where vulnerable MIME conversion routines may be used.
Send e-mail messages to the target system with specially crafted headers that trigger the buffer overflow and execute the shellcode.
Attack PrerequisitesThe target system uses a mail server.
Mail server vendor has not released a patch for the MIME conversion routine, the patch itself has a security hole or does not fix the original problem, or the patch has not been applied to the user's system.
Typical Likelihood of ExploitLikelihood: High
Methods of Attack- Injection
Examples-InstancesDescription
A MIME conversion buffer overflow exists in Sendmail versions 8.8.3 and 8.8.4. Sendmail versions 8.8.3 and 8.8.4 are vulnerable to a buffer overflow in the MIME handling code. By sending a message with specially-crafted headers to the server, a remote attacker can overflow a buffer and execute arbitrary commands on the system with root privileges.
Sendmail performs a 7 bit to 8 bit conversion on email messages. This vulnerability is due to the fact that insufficient bounds checking was performed while performing these conversions. This gave attacker an opportunity to overwrite the internal stack of sendmail while it is executing with root privileges. An attacker first probes the target system to figure out what mail server is used on the system and what version. An attacker could then test out the exploit at their leisure on their own machine running the same version of the mail server before using it in the wild.
Related Vulnerabilities
CVE-1999-0047
Attacker Skills or Knowledge RequiredSkill or Knowledge Level: Low
It may be trivial to cause a DoS via this attack pattern
Skill or Knowledge Level: High
Causing arbitrary code to execute on the target system.
Probing TechniquesThe first step is to figure what mail server (and what version) is running on the target system.
Solutions and MitigationsStay up to date with third party vendor patches
Disable the 7 to 8 bit conversion. This can be done by removing the F=9 flag from all Mailer specifications in the sendmail.cf file.
For example, a sendmail.cf file with these changes applied should look similar to (depending on your system and configuration):
This can be achieved for the "Mlocal" and "Mprog" Mailers by modifying the ".mc" file to include the following lines:
and then rebuilding the sendmail.cf file using m4(1).
From "Exploiting Software", please see reference below.
Use the sendmail restricted shell program (smrsh)
Use mail.local
Attack Motivation-Consequences- Run Arbitrary Code
- Data Modification
- Denial of Service
- Privilege Escalation
Injection VectorThe especially formated e-mail message whose body is put together in a way as to trigger the MIME conversion buffer overflow in the 7 to 8 bit MIME conversion function.
PayloadThe shellcode included as part of the e-mail message body that is executed on the target system with root privileges after the stack based buffer overflow in the 7 to 8 bit MIME conversion function is leveraged.
Activation ZoneThe function performing 7 to 8 bit MIME conversion.
Related Weaknesses| CWE-ID | Weakness Name | Weakness Relationship Type |
|---|---|---|
| 120 | Buffer Copy without Checking Size of Input ('Classic Buffer Overflow') | Targeted |
| 119 | Failure to Constrain Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer | Targeted |
| 74 | Failure to Sanitize Data into a Different Plane ('Injection') | Targeted |
| 20 | Improper Input Validation | Secondary |
Related Vulnerabilities| Vulnerability ID | Relationship Description |
|---|---|
| CVE-1999-0047 | A MIME conversion buffer overflow exists in Sendmail versions 8.8.3 and 8.8.4. Sendmail versions 8.8.3 and 8.8.4 are vulnerable to a buffer overflow in the MIME handling code. By sending a message with specially-crafted headers to the server, a remote attacker can overflow a buffer and execute arbitrary commands on the system with root privileges. Sendmail performs a 7 bit to 8 bit conversion on email messages. This vulnerability is due to the fact that insufficient bounds checking was performed while performing these conversions. This gave attacker an opportunity to overwrite the internal stack of sendmail while it is executing with root privileges. An attacker first probes the target system to figure out what mail server is used on the system and what version. An attacker could then test out the exploit at their leisure on their own machine running the same version of the mail server before using it in the wild. |
Related Attack Patterns| Nature | Type | ID | Name | Description | View(s) this relationship pertains to |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ChildOf |  Attack Pattern | 100 | Overflow Buffers | Mechanism of Attack (primary)1000 |
Related Security PrinciplesFailing Securely
Purposes- Penetration
- Exploitation
CIA Impact Technical Context| Architectural Paradigms | All |
|---|---|
| Frameworks | All |
| Platforms | All |
| Languages | All |
ReferencesCERT Advisory CA-1997-05, "MIME Conversion Buffer Overflow in Sendmail Versions 8.8.3 and 8.8.4". Available at: http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-1997-05.html
Content History| Submissions | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Submitter | Organization | Date | ||
| G. Hoglund and G. McGraw. Exploiting Software: How to Break Code. Addison-Wesley, February 2004. | Cigital, Inc | 2007-03-01 | ||
| Modifications | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Modifier | Organization | Date | Comments | ||
| Eugene Lebanidze | Cigital, Inc | 2007-02-26 | Fleshed out content to CAPEC schema from the original descriptions in "Exploiting Software" | ||
| Sean Barnum | Cigital, Inc | 2007-03-05 | Review and revise | ||
