Vulnerabilities > CVE-2009-1490 - Improper Restriction of Operations Within the Bounds of A Memory Buffer vulnerability in Sendmail
Attack vector
NETWORK Attack complexity
LOW Privileges required
NONE Confidentiality impact
NONE Integrity impact
NONE Availability impact
PARTIAL Summary
Heap-based buffer overflow in Sendmail before 8.13.2 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (daemon crash) and possibly execute arbitrary code via a long X- header, as demonstrated by an X-Testing header.
Vulnerable Configurations
Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE)
Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC)
- Buffer Overflow via Environment Variables This attack pattern involves causing a buffer overflow through manipulation of environment variables. Once the attacker finds that they can modify an environment variable, they may try to overflow associated buffers. This attack leverages implicit trust often placed in environment variables.
- Overflow Buffers Buffer Overflow attacks target improper or missing bounds checking on buffer operations, typically triggered by input injected by an attacker. As a consequence, an attacker is able to write past the boundaries of allocated buffer regions in memory, causing a program crash or potentially redirection of execution as per the attackers' choice.
- Client-side Injection-induced Buffer Overflow This type of attack exploits a buffer overflow vulnerability in targeted client software through injection of malicious content from a custom-built hostile service.
- Filter Failure through Buffer Overflow In this attack, the idea is to cause an active filter to fail by causing an oversized transaction. An attacker may try to feed overly long input strings to the program in an attempt to overwhelm the filter (by causing a buffer overflow) and hoping that the filter does not fail securely (i.e. the user input is let into the system unfiltered).
- MIME Conversion An attacker exploits a weakness in the MIME conversion routine to cause a buffer overflow and gain control over the mail server machine. The MIME system is designed to allow various different information formats to be interpreted and sent via e-mail. Attack points exist when data are converted to MIME compatible format and back.
Exploit-Db
| description | Sendmail 8.12.x 'X-header' Remote Heap Buffer Overflow Vulnerability. CVE-2009-1490. Dos exploit for linux platform |
| id | EDB-ID:32995 |
| last seen | 2016-02-03 |
| modified | 2009-05-27 |
| published | 2009-05-27 |
| reporter | Simple Nomad |
| source | https://www.exploit-db.com/download/32995/ |
| title | Sendmail 8.12.x - 'X-header' Remote Heap Buffer Overflow Vulnerability |
Nessus
| NASL family | SMTP problems |
| NASL id | SENDMAIL_X_HEADER_BUFFER_OVERFLOW.NASL |
| description | The remote host is running a version of the Sendmail mail server earlier than 8.13.2. Such versions are reportedly affected by a remote buffer overflow vulnerability. An attacker could leverage this flaw to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the affected application. |
| last seen | 2020-06-01 |
| modified | 2020-06-02 |
| plugin id | 38877 |
| published | 2009-05-24 |
| reporter | This script is Copyright (C) 2009-2018 and is owned by Tenable, Inc. or an Affiliate thereof. |
| source | https://www.tenable.com/plugins/nessus/38877 |
| title | Sendmail < 8.13.2 Mail X-Header Handling Remote Overflow |
Seebug
| bulletinFamily | exploit |
| description | BUGTRAQ ID: 34944 CVE(CAN) ID: CVE-2009-1490 Sendmail是很多大型站点都在使用的邮件传输代理（MTA）。 如果远程攻击者向Sendmail发送了包含有超长X-header头的畸形报文的话，就可能触发堆溢出，导致拒绝服务或执行任意代码。 Sendmail < 8.13.2 Sendmail Consortium ------------------- 目前厂商已经发布了升级补丁以修复这个安全问题，请到厂商的主页下载： <a href="http://www.sendmail.org/releases/8.13.2" target="_blank" rel=external nofollow>http://www.sendmail.org/releases/8.13.2</a> |
| id | SSV:11318 |
| last seen | 2017-11-19 |
| modified | 2009-05-17 |
| published | 2009-05-17 |
| reporter | Root |
| source | https://www.seebug.org/vuldb/ssvid-11318 |
| title | Sendmail X-header头远程堆溢出漏洞 |
Statements
| contributor | Mark J Cox |
| lastmodified | 2009-05-07 |
| organization | Red Hat |
| statement | Based on our analysis this issue does not have a security consequence and does not lead to a buffer overflow or denial of service. For more details of our technical evaluation see https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=499252#c18 |