A remote overflow exists in Gaim. Gaim fails to check the length of the destination buffer, when receiveing a reply to a DNS lookup of the local host name resulting in a buffer overflow. With a specially crafted request, an attacker can compromise the system resulting in a loss of integrity.
Classification
Location:
Remote / Network Access
Attack Type:
Input Manipulation
Impact:
Loss of Integrity
Exploit:
Exploit Unknown
Disclosure:
OSVDB Verified
Technical
If the local computers host name is not in /etc/hosts, and the computer performs a DNS query to obtain it's hostname when signing on to zephyr, it could receive a reply with a hostname greater than MAXHOSTNAMELEN (generally 64 bytes). If gethostbyname() does not ensure the size of hostent->h_name is less than MAXHOSTNAMELEN, this value would be copied to a buffer that is not large enough.
Solution
Upgrade to version 0.82 or higher, as it has been reported to fix this vulnerability. An upgrade is required as there are no known workarounds.
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