TigerVNC version prior to 1.10.1 is vulnerable to stack buffer overflow, which could be triggered from CMsgReader::readSetCursor. This vulnerability occurs due to insufficient sanitization of PixelFormat. Since remote attacker can choose offset from start of the buffer to start writing his values, exploitation of this vulnerability could potentially result into remote code execution. This attack appear to be exploitable via network connectivity.
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 |
| Tigervnc |
Tigervnc |
* |
1.10.1 (excluding) |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 |
RedHat |
tigervnc-0:1.8.0-21.el7 |
* |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 |
RedHat |
tigervnc-0:1.9.0-14.el8_1 |
* |
| Tigervnc |
Ubuntu |
bionic |
* |
| Tigervnc |
Ubuntu |
disco |
* |
| Tigervnc |
Ubuntu |
eoan |
* |
| Tigervnc |
Ubuntu |
trusty |
* |
| Tigervnc |
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].
References