Bug 102569 (CVE-2005-2550)

We received the following report via suse-security.
This issue is not public yet, please keep any information about it inside SUSE.

   2 local non-root user
  +1 default package
  +1 default active
  -1 user interaction
  +1 command execution

Total Score: 4 (Moderate)

Date: Mon, 08 Aug 2005 08:44:11 -0400
From: JP Rosevear <jpr@novell.com>
To: Neeti Agarwal <NAGARWAL@novell.com>, Parag Goel <pgoel@novell.com>,
	Harish <kharish@novell.com>
Cc: security@suse.de
Subject: [security@suse.de] [Fwd: Sitic Vulnerability Advisory: SA05-001
	Evolution multiple remote format string bugs]

Needs to be analyzed for versions affected.

-JP
-- 
JP Rosevear <jpr@novell.com>
Novell, Inc.

Content-Description: Forwarded message - Sitic Vulnerability Advisory: SA05-001 Evolution multiple remote format string bugs
Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2005 14:43:43 +0200
From: sitic@pts.se
To: security@gnome.org, jpr@novell.com
Subject: Sitic Vulnerability Advisory: SA05-001 Evolution multiple remote
	format string bugs

* Notice to Vendor *


Date: 2005-08-04

We are bringing to your attention one or more potential security
vulnerabilities
affecting one of your products.

In accordance with the SITIC Vulnerability Disclosure Process, such
information
is supplied in the form of preliminary SITIC Vulnerability Advisories,
to be
completed for later public release by SITIC.

Please find attached:

* List of preliminary SITIC Vulnerability Advisories:
  - SA05-001 Evolution multiple remote format string bugs

* List of additional files:
  - Evolution-data.zip containing
	evolution.formstring.patch
	evolution.ldif
	evolution.tasklist.txt
	evolution.vcf


In the initial stage we ask you, the vendor, to:
1) within 5 days confirm receipt of this notice
2) within 5 days confirm which products are affected by the
vulnerability
3) within 5 days provide preliminary date(s) for availability of
remedies

using the contact information below.

The aim for this process is a coordinated release of a SITIC
Vulnerability
Advisory for each concerned vulnerability, complete with instructions
for
eliminating or mitigating the vulnerability, agreed between the vendor
and
SITIC. Any queries that arise from this issue may be addressed to SITIC
with a subject line that includes the SITIC Vulnerability Advisory
Reference
as tracking code.

We kindly ask you to discuss with SITIC prior to any further
distribution.

We are looking forward to working with you on this issue.


Contact information:

Swedish IT Incident Centre, SITIC
P O Box 5398, SE-102 49 Stockholm, Sweden
Telephone: +46-8-678 5799
Email: sitic at pts dot se
http://www.sitic.se

Sitic PGP key:

http://www.sitic.se/dokument/pgpkey.asc



About SITIC:

The Swedish IT Incident Centre within the National Post and Telecom
Agency has
the task to support society in working with protection against IT
incidents.
SITIC facilitates exchange of information regarding IT incidents between
organisations in society, and disseminates information about new
problems
which potentially may impede the functionality of IT systems. In
addition,
SITIC provides information and advice regarding proactive measures and
compiles and publishes statistics.


Content-Description: SA05-001.txt
* SITIC Vulnerability Advisory *

           Advisory Name: Evolution multiple remote format string bugs
      Advisory Reference: SA05-001
 Date of initial release: Preliminary 2005-08-04
                 Product: Evolution 1.5, 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3
                Platform: Linux, BSD systems, Unix
                  Effect: Remote code execution
Vulnerability Identifier: Not assigned


Overview:

Evolution suffers from several format string bugs when handling data from
remote sources. These bugs lead to crashes or the execution of arbitrary
assembly language code.


Details:

1) The first format string bug occurs when viewing the full vCard data
attached to an e-mail message.

When opening an e-mail message, only a compact view of some of the fields
from the vCard is displayed, and this does not trigger the vulnerability.
To be affected, the user must click on Show Full vCard or perform similar
actions such as clicking on Save in Addressbook and then viewing the saved
data under the Contacts tab.

Why is this important? An attacker might notice that an organisation uses
Evolution, for instance after seeing the "X-Mailer: Evolution x.y.z" e-mail
header in their e-mails. He or she could then send out e-mail messages with
malicious vCards to many e-mail accounts at the organisation, in the hope
that some of the recipients will view the full vCard data sooner or later,
thus exposing the organisation to this format string bug.


2) The second format string bug occurs when displaying contact data fetched
from remote LDAP servers.


3) The third format string bug occurs when displaying task list data from
remote servers.


4) The fourth, and least serious, format string bug occurs when the user
goes to the Calendars tab to save task list data that is vulnerable to
problem 3 above. Other calendar entries that do not come from task lists
are also affected.


* * * FOR GNOME ONLY * * *

We have attached some example files, so you can test these vulnerabilities.
In all cases, Evolution will crash after performing an action similar to
printf("%n%n%n%n...");.

The attached evolution.vcf file will exhibit problem 1, when you e-mail it
to an Evolution user, open that e-mail message in Evolution, and click on
Show Full vCard.

The attached evolution.ldif file will exhibit problem 2, when you add it to
an LDAP server, configure Evolution to use that server, and then search for
and open the data from the file in Evolution.

The attached evolution.tasklist.txt file will exhibit problem 3, when you
put it on a web server, configure Evolution to use that server, and then
open the task from the file in Evolution.

Problem 4 can be tested by configuring the system to exhibit problem 3 above,
then selecting the Calendars tab, right-clicking on the task from the web
server, and selecting Save as and a file name. It also affects right-clicking
and saving other calendar entries that do not come from task lists.

You may also want to look into possible format string bugs when calling the
em_format_format_error(), camel_filter_driver_log(), camel_stream_printf()
and camel_exception_setv() functions. Some of the calls to them look a
bit suspicious.

* * * END * * *


Mitigating factors:

Users that never use any of the vulnerable features in Evolution are not
affected.


Affected versions:

  o  Evolution 1.5 to Evolution 2.3.6.1


Recommendations:

To be defined


Patch information:

We have attached a patch called evolution.formstring.patch that corrects
all mentioned issues. Please review it. 


Acknowledgments:

These vulnerabilities were discovered by Ulf Harnhammar for SITIC, Swedish
IT Incident Centre.


Contact information:

Swedish IT Incident Centre, SITIC
P O Box 5398, SE-102 49 Stockholm, Sweden
Telephone: +46-8-678 5799
Email: sitic at pts dot se
http://www.sitic.se/


Revision history:

Preliminary 2005-08-04


About SITIC:

The Swedish IT Incident Centre within the National Post and Telecom Agency
has the task to support society in working with protection against IT
incidents. SITIC facilitates exchange of information regarding IT incidents
between organisations in society, and disseminates information about new
problems which potentially may impede the functionality of IT systems. In
addition, SITIC provides information and advice regarding proactive measures
and compiles and publishes statistics.


Disclaimer:

The decision to follow or act on information or advice contained in this
Vulnerability Advisory is the responsibility of each user or organisation.
SITIC accepts no responsibility for any errors or omissions contained within
this Vulnerability Advisory, nor for any consequences which may arise from
following or acting on information or advice contained herein.