CVE-2022-24764 - Buffer Copy without Checking Size of Input ('Classic Buffer Overflow')

Severity

75%

Complexity

39%

Confidentiality

60%

PJSIP is a free and open source multimedia communication library written in C. Versions 2.12 and prior contain a stack buffer overflow vulnerability that affects PJSUA2 users or users that call the API `pjmedia_sdp_print(), pjmedia_sdp_media_print()`. Applications that do not use PJSUA2 and do not directly call `pjmedia_sdp_print()` or `pjmedia_sdp_media_print()` should not be affected. A patch is available on the `master` branch of the `pjsip/pjproject` GitHub repository. There are currently no known workarounds.

CVSS 3.1 Base Score 7.5. CVSS Attack Vector: network. CVSS Attack Complexity: low. CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H).

CVSS 2.0 Base Score 5. CVSS Attack Vector: network. CVSS Attack Complexity: low. CVSS Vector: (AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P).

Demo Examples

Buffer Copy without Checking Size of Input ('Classic Buffer Overflow')

CWE-120

The following code asks the user to enter their last name and then attempts to store the value entered in the last_name array.


               
scanf ("%s", last_name);

The problem with the code above is that it does not restrict or limit the size of the name entered by the user. If the user enters "Very_very_long_last_name" which is 24 characters long, then a buffer overflow will occur since the array can only hold 20 characters total.

Buffer Copy without Checking Size of Input ('Classic Buffer Overflow')

CWE-120

The following code attempts to create a local copy of a buffer to perform some manipulations to the data.


               
}
...

However, the programmer does not ensure that the size of the data pointed to by string will fit in the local buffer and blindly copies the data with the potentially dangerous strcpy() function. This may result in a buffer overflow condition if an attacker can influence the contents of the string parameter.

Buffer Copy without Checking Size of Input ('Classic Buffer Overflow')

CWE-120

The excerpt below calls the gets() function in C, which is inherently unsafe.


               
}
...

However, the programmer uses the function gets() which is inherently unsafe because it blindly copies all input from STDIN to the buffer without restricting how much is copied. This allows the user to provide a string that is larger than the buffer size, resulting in an overflow condition.

Buffer Copy without Checking Size of Input ('Classic Buffer Overflow')

CWE-120

In the following example, a server accepts connections from a client and processes the client request. After accepting a client connection, the program will obtain client information using the gethostbyaddr method, copy the hostname of the client that connected to a local variable and output the hostname of the client to a log file.


               
...
close(serversocket);
}
close(clientsocket);

However, the hostname of the client that connected may be longer than the allocated size for the local hostname variable. This will result in a buffer overflow when copying the client hostname to the local variable using the strcpy method.

Demo Examples

Stack-based Buffer Overflow

CWE-121

While buffer overflow examples can be rather complex, it is possible to have very simple, yet still exploitable, stack-based buffer overflows:


               
}
strcpy(buf, argv[1]);

The buffer size is fixed, but there is no guarantee the string in argv[1] will not exceed this size and cause an overflow.

Stack-based Buffer Overflow

CWE-121

This example takes an IP address from a user, verifies that it is well formed and then looks up the hostname and copies it into a buffer.


               
}
strcpy(hostname, hp->h_name);/*routine that ensures user_supplied_addr is in the right format for conversion */

This function allocates a buffer of 64 bytes to store the hostname, however there is no guarantee that the hostname will not be larger than 64 bytes. If an attacker specifies an address which resolves to a very large hostname, then we may overwrite sensitive data or even relinquish control flow to the attacker.

Note that this example also contains an unchecked return value (CWE-252) that can lead to a NULL pointer dereference (CWE-476).

Demo Examples

Out-of-bounds Write

CWE-787

The following code attempts to save four different identification numbers into an array.


               
id_sequence[3] = 456;

Out-of-bounds Write

CWE-787

In the following example, it is possible to request that memcpy move a much larger segment of memory than assumed:


               
}
.../* if chunk info is valid, return the size of usable memory,* else, return -1 to indicate an error*/
...

If returnChunkSize() happens to encounter an error it will return -1. Notice that the return value is not checked before the memcpy operation (CWE-252), so -1 can be passed as the size argument to memcpy() (CWE-805). Because memcpy() assumes that the value is unsigned, it will be interpreted as MAXINT-1 (CWE-195), and therefore will copy far more memory than is likely available to the destination buffer (CWE-787, CWE-788).

Out-of-bounds Write

CWE-787

This example takes an IP address from a user, verifies that it is well formed and then looks up the hostname and copies it into a buffer.


               
}
strcpy(hostname, hp->h_name);/*routine that ensures user_supplied_addr is in the right format for conversion */

This function allocates a buffer of 64 bytes to store the hostname, however there is no guarantee that the hostname will not be larger than 64 bytes. If an attacker specifies an address which resolves to a very large hostname, then we may overwrite sensitive data or even relinquish control flow to the attacker.

Note that this example also contains an unchecked return value (CWE-252) that can lead to a NULL pointer dereference (CWE-476).

Out-of-bounds Write

CWE-787

This example applies an encoding procedure to an input string and stores it into a buffer.


               
}
return dst_buf;
die("user string too long, die evil hacker!");
else dst_buf[dst_index++] = user_supplied_string[i];
dst_buf[dst_index++] = ';';
/* encode to < */

The programmer attempts to encode the ampersand character in the user-controlled string, however the length of the string is validated before the encoding procedure is applied. Furthermore, the programmer assumes encoding expansion will only expand a given character by a factor of 4, while the encoding of the ampersand expands by 5. As a result, when the encoding procedure expands the string it is possible to overflow the destination buffer if the attacker provides a string of many ampersands.

Out-of-bounds Write

CWE-787

In the following C/C++ example, a utility function is used to trim trailing whitespace from a character string. The function copies the input string to a local character string and uses a while statement to remove the trailing whitespace by moving backward through the string and overwriting whitespace with a NUL character.


               
}
return retMessage;// copy input string to a temporary string
message[index] = strMessage[index];
// trim trailing whitespace
len--;
// return string without trailing whitespace

However, this function can cause a buffer underwrite if the input character string contains all whitespace. On some systems the while statement will move backwards past the beginning of a character string and will call the isspace() function on an address outside of the bounds of the local buffer.

Out-of-bounds Write

CWE-787

The following is an example of code that may result in a buffer underwrite, if find() returns a negative value to indicate that ch is not found in srcBuf:


               
}
...

If the index to srcBuf is somehow under user control, this is an arbitrary write-what-where condition.

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