CVE-2019-10164

PostgreSQL versions 10.x before 10.9 and versions 11.x before 11.4 are vulnerable to a stack-based buffer overflow. Any authenticated user can overflow a stack-based buffer by changing the users own password to a purpose-crafted value. This often suffices to execute arbitrary code as the PostgreSQL operating system account.

Weakness

A stack-based buffer overflow condition is a condition where the buffer being overwritten is allocated on the stack (i.e., is a local variable or, rarely, a parameter to a function).

Affected Software

Name	Vendor	Start Version	End Version
Postgresql	Postgresql	10.0 (including)	10.9 (excluding)
Postgresql	Postgresql	11.0 (including)	11.4 (excluding)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8	RedHat	libpq-0:12.1-3.el8	*
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8	RedHat	postgresql:10-8020020200825115746.4cda2c84	*
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.0 Update Services for SAP Solutions	RedHat	postgresql:10-8000020201214113918.f8e95b4e	*
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1 Extended Update Support	RedHat	postgresql:10-8010020201214112129.c27ad7f8	*
Red Hat Software Collections for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7	RedHat	rh-postgresql10-postgresql-0:10.12-2.el7	*
Red Hat Software Collections for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.5 EUS	RedHat	rh-postgresql10-postgresql-0:10.12-2.el7	*
Red Hat Software Collections for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.6 EUS	RedHat	rh-postgresql10-postgresql-0:10.12-2.el7	*
Red Hat Software Collections for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.7 EUS	RedHat	rh-postgresql10-postgresql-0:10.12-2.el7	*
Postgresql-10	Ubuntu	bionic	*
Postgresql-10	Ubuntu	cosmic	*
Postgresql-10	Ubuntu	esm-infra/bionic	*
Postgresql-10	Ubuntu	upstream	*
Postgresql-11	Ubuntu	devel	*
Postgresql-11	Ubuntu	disco	*
Postgresql-11	Ubuntu	upstream	*

Potential Mitigations

Use automatic buffer overflow detection mechanisms that are offered by certain compilers or compiler extensions. Examples include: the Microsoft Visual Studio /GS flag, Fedora/Red Hat FORTIFY_SOURCE GCC flag, StackGuard, and ProPolice, which provide various mechanisms including canary-based detection and range/index checking.
D3-SFCV (Stack Frame Canary Validation) from D3FEND [REF-1334] discusses canary-based detection in detail.
Run or compile the software using features or extensions that randomly arrange the positions of a program’s executable and libraries in memory. Because this makes the addresses unpredictable, it can prevent an attacker from reliably jumping to exploitable code.
Examples include Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) [REF-58] [REF-60] and Position-Independent Executables (PIE) [REF-64]. Imported modules may be similarly realigned if their default memory addresses conflict with other modules, in a process known as “rebasing” (for Windows) and “prelinking” (for Linux) [REF-1332] using randomly generated addresses. ASLR for libraries cannot be used in conjunction with prelink since it would require relocating the libraries at run-time, defeating the whole purpose of prelinking.
For more information on these techniques see D3-SAOR (Segment Address Offset Randomization) from D3FEND [REF-1335].

NVD	https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2019-10164
CWE	https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/121.html

Stack-based Buffer Overflow

Weakness

Affected Software

Potential Mitigations

References