CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2009-3553

Use After Free

Published: Nov 20, 2009 | Modified: Feb 02, 2024
CVSS 3.x
7.5
HIGH
Source:
NVD
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CVSS 2.x
5 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P
RedHat/V2
RedHat/V3
Ubuntu

Use-after-free vulnerability in the abstract file-descriptor handling interface in the cupsdDoSelect function in scheduler/select.c in the scheduler in cupsd in CUPS 1.3.7 and 1.3.10 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (daemon crash or hang) via a client disconnection during listing of a large number of print jobs, related to improperly maintaining a reference count. NOTE: some of these details are obtained from third party information.

Weakness

Referencing memory after it has been freed can cause a program to crash, use unexpected values, or execute code.

Affected Software

Name Vendor Start Version End Version
Cups Apple 1.3.7 (including) 1.3.7 (including)
Cups Apple 1.3.10 (including) 1.3.10 (including)
Mac_os_x Apple * 10.5.8 (excluding)
Mac_os_x Apple 10.6.0 (including) 10.6.2 (excluding)
Mac_os_x_server Apple * 10.5.8 (excluding)
Mac_os_x_server Apple 10.6.0 (including) 10.6.2 (excluding)

Extended Description

The use of previously-freed memory can have any number of adverse consequences, ranging from the corruption of valid data to the execution of arbitrary code, depending on the instantiation and timing of the flaw. The simplest way data corruption may occur involves the system’s reuse of the freed memory. Use-after-free errors have two common and sometimes overlapping causes:

In this scenario, the memory in question is allocated to another pointer validly at some point after it has been freed. The original pointer to the freed memory is used again and points to somewhere within the new allocation. As the data is changed, it corrupts the validly used memory; this induces undefined behavior in the process. If the newly allocated data happens to hold a class, in C++ for example, various function pointers may be scattered within the heap data. If one of these function pointers is overwritten with an address to valid shellcode, execution of arbitrary code can be achieved.

Potential Mitigations

References