ASA-2019-00466 – Exim: Remote code execution with root privileges in unusual configuration


Allele Security Alert

ASA-2019-00466

Identifier(s)

ASA-2019-00466, CVE-2019-13917, OVE-20190718-0006

Title

Remote code execution with root privileges in unusual configuration

Vendor(s)

The Exim Project

Product(s)

Exim

Affected version(s)

Exim versions 4.85 up to and including 4.92

Fixed version(s)

Exim version 4.92.1

Proof of concept

Unknown

Description

A local or remote attacker can execute programs with root privileges – if you’ve an unusual configuration.

If your configuration uses the ${sort } expansion for items that can be controlled by an attacker (e.g. $local_part, $domain). The default config, as shipped by the Exim developers, does not contain ${sort }.

The vulnerability is exploitable either remotely or locally and could be used to execute other programs with root privilege. The ${sort } expansion re-evaluates its items.

Technical details

Unknown

Workaround

Do not use ${sort } in your configuration.

Credits

Jeremy Harris

Reference(s)

CVE-2019-13917.txt
https://exim.org/static/doc/security/CVE-2019-13917.txt

Avoid re-expansion in ${sort } CVE-2019-13917 OVE-20190718-0006
https://github.com/Exim/exim/commit/cf84d126bc1f04746eb7c8e8b3468f7e70add3ec

CVE-2019-13917
https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2019-13917

CVE-2019-13917
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2019-13917

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Last modified: August 1, 2019

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