Description
A certain debugging component in IBM AIX 5.3 and 6.1 does not properly handle the (1) _LIB_INIT_DBG and (2) _LIB_INIT_DBG_FILE environment variables, which allows local users to gain privileges by leveraging a setuid-root program to create an arbitrary root-owned file with world-writable permissions, related to libC.a (aka the XL C++ runtime library) in AIX 5.3 and libc.a in AIX 6.1.
Public exploits
Exploit or proof-of-concept code for this vulnerability is publicly available, which lowers the bar for attackers. Treat it as a reason to patch sooner.
Third-party code, not reviewed by us. Public PoCs are sometimes fake or contain malware. Read the code first and run it only in an isolated lab, against systems you are authorised to test.
Exploit-DB 1
- IBM AIX 5.6/6.1 - '_LIB_INIT_DBG' Arbitrary File Overwrite via Libc Debug EDB-9645 · local · Sep 11, 2009 · verified
Sources: PoC-in-GitHub, Metasploit Framework, Exploit-DB — updated daily. Only links are listed; no exploit code is hosted here.
References
- IZ54593 vendor-advisory
- IZ56204 vendor-advisory
- 36156 third-party-advisory
- http://aix.software.ibm.com/aix/efixes/security/libC_advisory.asc
- IZ56203 vendor-advisory
- IZ54090 vendor-advisory
- IZ54091 vendor-advisory
- 35934 vdb-entry
- IZ56205 vendor-advisory
- ADV-2009-2151 vdb-entry
- 20090804 IBM AIX libC _LIB_INIT_DBG Arbitrary File Creation Vulnerability third-party-advisory
- IZ56206 vendor-advisory