Bulletin Number: 00143

Title: Vulnerability in eeprom

Cross-Ref: 

Create Date: June 24 1997

Date: June 24 1997

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1.  Bulletins Topics

    Sun announces the release of patches for Solaris 2.5.1, 2.5, 2.4, and 2.3
    (SunOS 5.5.1, 5.5, 5.4, and 5.3), that relate to a vulnerability in the
    eeprom program.

    Sun strongly recommends that you install the patches listed in section 4
    immediately on every affected system.

2.  Who is Affected
	
       Vulnerable:	SunOS versions 5.5.1, 5.5, 5.4, and 5.3 for SPARC only.

       Not vulnerable:	All other supported versions of SunOS
     		
       The vulnerability is fixed in the upcoming release of Solaris.

3.  Understanding the Vulnerability

    The eeprom program changes or displays the values of parameters in EEPROM.
    The EEPROM (Electrically erasable programmable read-only memory) is a
    non-volatile PROM that holds information about the current system
    configuration, alternate boot paths, and other information. Due to
    insufficient bounds checking on arguments passed to the eeprom program,
    it is possible to overwrite the internal stack space of eeprom while it is
    executing. Since eeprom has setgid bin permissions, this vulnerability may
    allow non-privileged users to gain privileged access, including root
    privileges.
    	
4.  List of Patches

    The vulnerability in eeprom is fixed by the following patches:

        OS version              Patch ID
        ----------              --------
        SunOS 5.5.1             104795-01
        SunOS 5.5               104796-01
        SunOS 5.4               104798-01	
        SunOS 5.3               104797-01	

	Intel x86 systems do not have the eeprom program and are not
	affected by this vulnerability.

5.  Checksum Table

    The checksum table below shows the BSD checksums (SunOS 5.x: /usr/ucb/sum),
    SVR4 checksums (SunOS 5.x: /usr/bin/sum), and the MD5 digital signatures
    for the above-mentioned patches that are available from:

     	ftp://sunsolve1.sun.com/pub/patches/patches.html
     	
    These checksums may not apply if you obtain patches from your answer
    centers.

File Name	      BSD	      SVR4	       MD5
---------------   ---------   ---------    --------------------------------
104795-01.tar.Z   03357 150   64333 300    3004B44BE2742A51A593DE8B76679768
104796-01.tar.Z   12042 150   18119 299    92DA0C5513E191A4C3719B3EFFB1B935
104798-01.tar.Z   40939 166   63088 332    DD89275C55397A97C4B06D1E5037723F
104797-01.tar.Z   59061 165   27937 330    BE97B2DD42A890F4E736A323E3CD8A4A

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APPENDICES

A.  Patches listed in this bulletin are available to all Sun customers via
    World Wide Web at:

    	ftp://sunsolve1.sun.com/pub/patches/patches.html
    	
    Customers with Sun support contracts can also obtain patches from local
    Sun answer centers and SunSITEs worldwide.

B.  Sun security bulletins are available via World Wide Web at:

	http://sunsolve1.sun.com/sunsolve/secbulletins
	
C.  To report or inquire about a security problem with Sun software, contact
    one or more of the following:

        - Your local Sun answer centers
        - Your representative computer security response team, such as CERT
        - Sun Security Coordination Team. Send email to:
	
     		security-alert@sun.com

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    		security-alert@sun.com

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