NGSSoftware Insight Security Research Advisory

Name: Multiple Buffer Overflow Vulnerabilities in Informix
Systems Affected: All versions of Informix
Severity: High
Vendor URL: http://www.ibm.com/ 
Author: David Litchfield [ davidl@ngssoftware.com ] 
Date of Public Advisory: 2nd August 2006
Advisory number: #NISR02082006D
CVEID: http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2006-3857 
Advisory URL: http://www.ngssoftware.com/research/ 

Description
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Informix Dynamic Server is a database developed by IBM. During a security 
assessment of Informix multiple buffer overflow vulnerabilities were 
discovered that could be exploited via SQL or the protocol.


Details
*******

At the SQL level the following SQL statements are vulnerable to overflow.

 SET DEBUG FILE
 IFX_FILE_TO_FILE
 FILETOCLOB
 LOTOFILE
 DBINFO


At the protocol level, overflows were found in the following C functions

 _sq_remview
 _sq_remproc
 _sq_remperms
 _sq_distfetch
 _sq_dcatalog

Each of these call the getname() function. The getname() function takes a 
source string and copies it to a destination buffer - much like strcpy().

Each of these overflows are trivially exploitable. All have been assigned to 
CVE-2006-3857.

Further to these overflows, unhandled exceptions can be triggered with a 
NULL pointer in the _sq_scroll and _sq_bbind functions at the protocol 
level. Exploitation of these two flaws would result in a DoS condition. 
These two issues have been assigned to CVE-2006-3856.

Fix Information
***************
IBM was alerted to these flaws between the 6th and the 18th January 2005. 
Patches have now been made available.

NGSSQuirreL for Informix, an advanced vulnerability assessment scanner 
designed specifically for Informix, can be used to accurately determine 
whether your servers are vulnerable to this flaw. More information about 
NGSSQuirreL for Informix can be found here 
http://www.ngssoftware.com/products/database-security/ngs-squirrel-informix.php 

About NGSSoftware
*****************

NGSSoftware develops vulnerability assessment and compliancy tools for 
database servers including Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, DB2, Sybase and 
Informix. Headquartered in the United Kingdom NGS has offices in London, St. 
Andrews (UK), Sydney, Brisbane, and Perth (Australia) and Texas in the 
United States; NGSConsulting provide services to some of the largest and 
most demanding organizations around the globe.

http://www.ngssoftware.com/ 

Telephone +44 208 401 0070
Fax +44 208 401 0076

enquiries@ngssoftware.com