CVE-2022-3437

A heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability was found in Samba within the GSSAPI unwrap_des() and unwrap_des3() routines of Heimdal. The DES and Triple-DES decryption routines in the Heimdal GSSAPI library allow a length-limited write buffer overflow on malloc() allocated memory when presented with a maliciously small packet. This flaw allows a remote user to send specially crafted malicious data to the application, possibly resulting in a denial of service (DoS) attack.

Weakness

A heap overflow condition is a buffer overflow, where the buffer that can be overwritten is allocated in the heap portion of memory, generally meaning that the buffer was allocated using a routine such as malloc().

Affected Software

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].

Related Attack Patterns

• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/92.html

References

• http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2023/02/08/1
• https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2022-3437
• https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2137774
• https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2024/04/msg00015.html
• https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202309-06
• https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202310-06
• https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20230216-0008/
• https://www.samba.org/samba/security/CVE-2022-3437.html