iDefense Security Advisory 10.10.06: FreeBSD ptrace PT_LWPINFO Denial of Service Vulnerability

[Bill Moran]

Colin Percival <cperciva at freebsd.org> wrote:

> Bill Moran wrote:
> > This report seems pretty vague.  I'm unsure as to whether the alleged
> > "bug" gives the user any more permissions than he'd already have?  Anyone
> > know any details?
> 
> This is a local denial of service bug, which was fixed 6 weeks ago in HEAD
> and RELENG_6.  There is no opportunity for either remote denial of service
> or any privilege escalation.
> 
> > VI. VENDOR RESPONSE
> > 
> > "The policy of the FreeBSD Security Team is that local denial of service
> > bugs not be treated as security issues; it is possible that this problem
> > will be corrected in a future Erratum."
> 
> If there was any potential for
> (a) privilege escalation,
> (b) disclosure of potentially sensitive information, or
> (c) denial of service by a non-authenticated attacker,
> we would have issued a security advisory.

That was what I expected.  Section III seems to hint that it could be
used by an unprivilidged user to crash or lock a system.  I suspect they
used it as root to crash/lock the OS.  But I don't need any bugs to do
that as root, so it doesn't really count as a security issue.

BTW, are you going to be at NYCBSDCon?  If so, seek me out -- I owe you
a beer at the least.

As always, thanks for the quick response.

-- 
Bill Moran

That seem right to you?

        Jubal Early