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-
- Computer underground Digest Sun Sep 22, 1996 Volume 8 : Issue 67
- ISSN 1004-042X
-
- Editor: Jim Thomas (cudigest@sun.soci.niu.edu)
- News Editor: Gordon Meyer (gmeyer@sun.soci.niu.edu)
- Archivist: Brendan Kehoe
- Shadow Master: Stanton McCandlish
- Field Agent Extraordinaire: David Smith
- Shadow-Archivists: Dan Carosone / Paul Southworth
- Ralph Sims / Jyrki Kuoppala
- Ian Dickinson
- Cu Digest Homepage: http://www.soci.niu.edu/~cudigest
-
- CONTENTS, #8.67 (Sun, Sep 22, 1996)
-
- File 1--Hackers on Net and BBC-ISP's "morality button," from FinTimes
- File 2--More on hackers and CIA web page
- File 3--official statement from Lexis-Nexis about P-Trak (fwd)
- File 4--Tim O'Reilly Comments in Re DOJ's Investigation of Microsoft
- File 5--Condat denies the Crypt Newsletter's editor accusations
- File 6--CERT Advisory CA-96.20 - Sendmail Vulnerabilities (fwd)
- File 7--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 7 Apr, 1996)
-
- CuD ADMINISTRATIVE, EDITORIAL, AND SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION ApPEARS IN
- THE CONCLUDING FILE AT THE END OF EACH ISSUE.
-
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- Date: Fri, 20 Sep 1996 22:36:11 -0500 (CDT)
- From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
- Subject: File 1--Hackers on Net and BBC-ISP's "morality button," from FinTimes
-
- Financial Times
- Concern at attacks by hackers on Internet sites
-
- Wednesday September 18 1996
-
- By Louise Kehoe in San Francisco
-
- A rash of hacker attacks on commercial Internet sites - including one
- in which the services of Panix, a New York-based Internet access
- provider, were seriously disrupted - has raised new concerns about the
- security and reliability of the worldwide computer network.
-
- In these "denial of service" attacks, hackers have flooded Internet
- sites with false requests for information sent from fake addresses,
- tying up the computers and preventing access by legitimate users.
-
- In addition to the Panix attack, at least one large information
- technology company, which declined to be identified, has suffered a
- similar attack.
-
- Attacks have been "isolated incidents", said Mr Pete Solvik,
- vice-president of information systems at Cisco Systems, the leading
- manufacturer of routing equipment for the Internet. The company,
- however, is concerned that the problem could spread, disrupting
- Internet service for millions of users and effectively closing down
- large commercial sites on the Internet.
-
- With many banks and retailers now planning Internet services, the
- potential for financial losses as a result of such attacks is rising.
- Disruption of Internet service can also be a serious problem for the
- tens of thousands of businesses that now rely on electronic mail and
- sites on the World Wide Web to communicate with their partners and
-
- [...]
-
- The Federal Bureau of Investigation's New York Computer Investigations
- Threat Assessment Center is understood to be investigating the attack
- on Panix. Computer Emergency Response Teams, a US organisation that
- collates information about security and technical problems on the
- Internet, are looking into the incident.
-
- ###
-
- Financial Times
- BBC to enter Internet market
-
- Thursday September 19 1996
-
- By Alan Cane and Raymond Snoddy in London
-
- The BBC plans to launch a service on the Internet which could promote
- greater acceptance of the global computer network in the same way that
- the BBC Computer popularised computing in the 1980s.
-
- Contracts have been signed between BBC Worldwide, the public
- broadcaster's commercial arm, and the multimedia division of ICL, the
- UK computer group owned by Fujitsu of Japan, to design and run the
- service.
-
- BBC Worldwide will announce the service within the next two weeks. It
- will feature news, weather and travel information as well as
- educational and entertainment material. It is expected to go live in
- the early part of 1997.
-
- [...]
-
- The main selling points will be speed - compared with the frequent
- delays experienced by users - and ease of use. There will also be a
- "morality button" to reassure parents who might fear their children
- could use the service to view pornography and other unsuitable
- material available on the Internet.
-
- ICL declined to comment last night.
-
- ------------------------------
-
- From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
- To: fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu
- Subject: File 2--More on hackers and CIA web page
-
- The web pages are at:
-
- http://titus.is.co.za/mikev/cia_hack/
- http://www.skeeve.net/cia/
-
- Looks like the hackers tipped off CNN, which has been running video clips.
- Reuters also picked this up.
-
- -Declan
-
- *********
-
- HACKERS VANDALIZE CIA HOME PAGE
-
- No security breach of private files, agency says
-
- September 19, 1996
- Web posted at: 10:00 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT)
-
- By Wayne B. Drash and Jim B. Morris
-
- ATLANTA (CNN) -- Hackers broke into the CIA's World Wide Web home
- page (http://www.odci.gov/cia/) Thursday morning, altered it, added
- obscenities and changed the agency's name on the page to the
- "Central Stupidity Agency."
-
- The CIA, which took down the site shortly after 7:30 a.m. EDT, said
- the hackers did not gain access to the agency's private files. "This
- (the publicly available CIA Web site) is on an entirely different
- circuit from everyone else at the CIA," agency spokesman Rick Oborn
-
- He said the CIA did not know who was responsible for the hacking or
- when the page would be restored. "A team is being pulled together to
- assess how many layers (of the site) were affected and how we can
- get it back on line," Oborn said.
-
- Anonymous call
-
- An anonymous phone caller tipped CNN Interactive to the break-in,
- saying Swedish hackers were responsible.
-
- The phone call was received about 5:45 a.m. EDT. When asked what the
- hackers had done to the page, the man said, "I think you should just
- take a look at it."
-
- He then hung up without further comment. He did not leave his name
- or identify a specific group.
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Date: Wed, 18 Sep 1996 21:21:14 -0400 (EDT)
- From: Noah <noah@enabled.com>
- Subject: File 3--official statement from Lexis-Nexis about P-Trak (fwd)
-
- From -Noah
-
- ---------- Forwarded message ----------
- Date--Wed, 18 Sep 1996 21:21:14 -0400 (EDT)
- From--Maura Kearns <zippy@mcfeely.bsfs.org>
-
- Here's the real info on the Lexis thing:
-
-
- This statement was issued today:
- --------
- STATEMENT FROM LEXIS-NEXIS 9/18/96
-
- Incorrect information is being distributed on Internet newsgroups regarding
- the data displayed in LEXIS-NEXIS' P-TRAK file. P-TRAK is like an
- electronic "white pages." The only information displayed is the name of the
- individual, current address and up to two previous addresses and telephone
- number. In some cases, the individual's maiden name may appear and as well
- as the month and year of birth. That is the ONLY information displayed in
- the P-TRAK file.
-
- Contrary to some messages that have been posted to some Internet discussion
- and news groups, the P-TRAK file DOES NOT contain any credit histories, bank
- account information, personal financial data, mother's maiden name or
- medical histories. This misinformation has been posted over and over again
- to various news groups.
-
- An example of a record appears below:
-
- Name: DOE, JOHN E
- Current Address: 1066 Anywhere Drive, Dayton, OH 95454
- Previous Address: 106 Somewhere Drive, Dayton, OH 92454
- Birthdate: 9/1965
- Telephone Number: 555-1212
- On File Since: 6/1/1994
-
- The information displayed in the P-TRAK file is the type of information
- readily available from public information sources such as telephone
- directories (in print and CD-ROM format) and public records maintained by
- government agencies.
-
- LEXIS-NEXIS markets the P-TRAK file to the legal community for use by
- general legal practitioners, litigators and public attorneys, as well as law
- enforcement agencies and police departments. These professionals use the
- P-TRAK file to assist in locating litigants, witnesses, shareholders,
- debtors, heirs and beneficiaries.
-
- LEXIS-NEXIS is aware of the sensitivities regarding the potential misuse of
- information. Business competitors of LEXIS-NEXIS have for some time made
- Social Security numbers available to users of their services. In addition,
- Social Security Numbers and other information are available on the Internet
- from a number of sources. Despite this wide availability of Social Security
- numbers in the market place, LEXIS-NEXIS discontinued the display of Social
- Security numbers in the P-TRAK file as of June 11, 1996, eleven days after
- the product was introduced.
-
- Through its actions, LEXIS-NEXIS is balancing the privacy concerns of the
- public with the legitimate needs of legal, business and government
- professionals for access to accurate sources of publicly available
- information. By discontinuing the display of Social Security numbers in
- P-TRAK and only providing information that is already available to the
- public from other sources, LEXIS-NEXIS believes it has responsibly met the
- expressed concerns of the public.
-
- Individuals interested in having their names removed from the P-TRAK file
- can e-mail their full name and complete address to:
- p-trak@prod.lexis-nexis.com or mail this information to ATTN: P-TRAK, P. O.
- Box 933, Dayton, OH 45401.
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Date: Thu, 19 Sep 1996 19:00:41 -0700
- From: Ellen Elias <elias@ora.com>
- Subject: File 4--Tim O'Reilly Comments in Re DOJ's Investigation of Microsoft
-
- For Immediate Release
- Further Information Contact
- Ellen Elias
- (707)829-0515 ext. 322
- elias@ora.com
-
- STATEMENT OF TIM O'REILLY, PRESIDENT OF O'REILLY & ASSOCIATES, IN
- RESPONSE TO CONFIRMATION OF JUSTICE DEPARTMENT'S INVESTIGATION OF
- MICROSOFT
-
- September 19, 1996, Sebastopol, CA--Tim O'Reilly, upon learning of the
- confirmed investigation of Microsoft by the federal Department of
- Justice, called for Microsoft to cease its anti-competitive behavior.
- Mr. O'Reilly made the following comments:
-
- "I'm delighted to hear about the Department of Justice
- investigation. We don't know what they'll find, but we do know
- that Microsoft's recent practices have been bad for users, and
- they have demonstrated a pattern of anti-competitive behavior.
- The fact of this investigation will further alert people to
- Microsoft's activities. I believe in the marketplace, and think
- that there can be a healthy impact on the marketplace from the
- DOJ investigation.
-
- "Each time O'Reilly & Associates has brought a particular fact about
- Microsoft into the public eye, the response from Microsoft has been
- deceptive and confusing. In July, 1996, we complained publicly about
- their 10-connection limit on Windows NT Workstation. In response,
- Microsoft removed the 10-connection limit from the code, but then kept
- it in the user license. Further, Microsoft made extravagant claims that
- they were doing this for users: they claimed that NT Workstation was
- just not suitable as a Web server platform. That claim inspired our
- Senior Editor Andrew Schulman's investigation into the actual
- differences between NT Workstation and NT Server. He found that,
- indeed, at the core, they are not very different at all.
-
- "Microsoft doesn't need to win every battle to stifle innovation. As
- powerful as they are, they can determine the terms under which software
- development happens, and they can seriously limit important development
- by their anti-competitive behavior. Here's an example: when O'Reilly &
- Associates first developed and marketed WebSite(TM), Microsoft patted
- us on the back, because we were legitimizing NT as a Web server
- platform. But when Microsoft decided they wanted the Web server market
- for themselves, they used their restrictive NT 4.0 Workstation user
- license as a tool to frighten users against using any competitors' Web
- servers on that platform. Microsoft's actions have made it difficult
- for us, as well as all other server vendors, to compete. So what kind
- of industry does that create?
-
- "Netscape has claimed that many people have been afraid to speak in
- fear of retribution from Microsoft. Netscape has said that now, these
- people will feel free to speak publicly, and I think that should prove
- very enlightening. I hope the Department of Justice will vigorously
- pursue this investigation. I also hope the public will hold Microsoft
- to the same high standard of business practices to which our entire
- industry should adhere."
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Date: Wed, 18 Sep 1996 15:12:31 +0100
- From: Jean-Bernard Condat <jeanbc@INFORMIX.COM>
- Subject: File 5--Condat denies the Crypt Newsletter's editor accusations
-
- This morning, I receive the Cu Digest #8.66 and carefully read the
- file 3 with a complete surprise. I never send any article related to
- computer viruses troubles during the US Army's Bosnian deployment
- plagiarizing the well-knowned Crypt Newsletter.
-
- After my publication of the Mark A. Ludwig's book "The Little Black
- Book of Computer Viruses" with Addison-Wesley France ("Naissance
- d'un virus" for the first volume and "Mutation d'un virus" for the
- second one), I have had a lot of problems: night & day phone calls,
- injures, public critics on French TV and/or magazines, etc. I stop
- the crazy rumors immediately. I don't writte any more computer
- virus' articles; I don't participate to any security events; I don't
- collaborate to any craking/phreaking/swapping actions. For example,
- I don't participate to the French 2600 meeting in Porte d'Italie in
- Paris last week.
-
- As my understanding, this previous email under my name was send to
- CuD editors from and unauthorized source. As some of you know, I
- have been having problems with the secret services in the past and I
- got into a large battle with was France Telecom -vs- Me. It is
- stupid to get into an argument with that kind of corporation, and a
- few words and threats were thrown, they locked all my phone
- accounts. I wrote a letter in response of that and they proceded to
- harass my company that put me immediately out. Also some lamers
- posted some hoax letters in the French news groups and whatever.
- They eventually decided to charge me and whatever, and to save me
- time outta the Paris courts and crap like that I made an apology for
- the threats, seeing that they could incriminate me. France Telecom
- has done wrong and I probably won't be seeing alot of apologies
- coming my way. If they didn't have certain info about me... they
- could have me very well laughing at them but that is not the case.
-
- At this time, I have some crazy guys that don't hesitate to put all
- the scripts of my TV shows
- (http://www.magic.be/InterieurNuit/SiteMars/Condat.html), or to put
- my picture (http://www.condat.de/condat/jean-b/). Yesterday, I lost
- my job of senior consultant in the Smart Card Business Unit of
- Informix because Mr. Tariq Krim of the ENST in Paris don't hesitate
- to call all my chiefs with some kind words on my life. In France,
- this type of action permit to put me out the company some seconds
- after.
-
- "Information wants to be free" is false. I have to many subjects to
- writte on that to plagiarized Crypt News will be a "sincerest form
- of flattery", like George Smith writte. But I prefer the unpolically
- correct French-style-approach, the savoir-vivre of Paris. Accept all
- my real excuses for all the French guy like Krim that prefer to
- crash my career for having the pleasure to be the best! I read Crypt
- News with pleasure and always respect the international copyright
- notices.
-
- Apologetically,
-
- \\\|///
- | ~ ~ |
- (- 0 0 -)
- +--------------------.oOOo-(_)-oOOo.-------------------------+
- | Jean-Bernard Condat |
- | 47 rue des rosiers, 93400 Saint-Ouen France |
- | Phone: +33 1 40100357, fax: 1 46963765, Itineris: 07238628 |
- | Email: condat@atelier.fr, PGP Key Id: C8F5D50D |
- | Oooo. |
- +--------------------.oooO-----( )--------------------------+
- ( ) ) /
- \ ( (_/
- \_)
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Date: Wed, 18 Sep 1996 10:40:07 -0400
- From: Noah <noah@enabled.com>
- Subject: File 6--CERT Advisory CA-96.20 - Sendmail Vulnerabilities (fwd)
-
- From -Noah
-
- ---------- Forwarded message ----------
- Date--Wed, 18 Sep 1996 10:40:07 -0400
- From--CERT Advisory <cert-advisory@cert.org>
-
- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
-
- =============================================================================
- CERT(sm) Advisory CA-96.20
- Original issue date: September 18, 1996
- Last revised: --
-
- Topic: Sendmail Vulnerabilities
- - -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
- *** This advisory supersedes CA-95:05 ***
-
- The CERT Coordination Center has received reports of two security problems in
- sendmail that affect all versions up to and including 8.7.5. By exploiting
- the first of these vulnerabilities, users who have local accounts can gain
- access to the default user, which is often daemon. By exploiting the second
- vulnerability, any local user can gain root access.
-
- The CERT/CC team recommends installing vendor patches or upgrading to the
- current version of sendmail (8.7.6). Until you can do so, we urge you to
- apply the workaround provided in Sec. III.C. In all cases, be sure to take
- the extra precautions listed in Sec. III.D.
-
- For beta testers of sendmail 8.8: The vulnerabilities described in this
- advisory have been fixed in the beta version.
-
- We will update this advisory as we receive additional information. Please
- check advisory files regularly for updates that relate to your site. In
- addition, you can check ftp://info.cert.org/pub/latest_sw_versions/sendmail
- to identify the most current version of sendmail.
-
- - -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- I. Description
-
- There are two vulnerabilities in all versions of sendmail up to and
- including sendmail 8.7.5. The first vulnerability is a resource starvation
- problem and the second is a buffer overflow problem.
-
- Resource Starvation
- -------------------
-
- When email is forwarded to a program using a .forward file or an :include:
- statement within a .forward or alias file, that program is executed as the
- owner of the .forward file or the file referenced by the :include:
- statement. Similarly, if email is forwarded to a file, that file is
- opened as the owner of the .forward file or the file referenced by the
- :include: statement. The file owner is called the "controlling user."
-
- If the message cannot be delivered immediately, the name of the
- controlling user is written into the queue file along with the other
- delivery information so that the appropriate permissions can be acquired
- when the mail queue is processed.
-
- Only the name of the controlling user is written in the queue file. This
- name is derived by calling the system routine getpwuid(3) on the user id
- of the file owner. If getpwuid fails, the sendmail default user (defined
- by the DefaultUser option in 8.7 and by the "u" and "g" options in older
- releases) is assumed.
-
- In some cases, the system can be forced into resource starvation, thus
- forcing getpwuid(3) to fail even though an entry exists in /etc/passwd
- corresponding to that uid. Since getpwuid has no way of portably
- returning an error meaning "resource failure" as distinct from "user id
- not found," sendmail has no way of distinguishing between these cases; it
- assumes that the uid is unknown and falls back to the default user.
-
- By starving sendmail of specific resources, sendmail will create files
- owned by the default user. Once created, these files can be used to
- access other files owned by the default user. In addition, these files
- owned by the default user can be used to leverage access to other
- privileged users on the system.
-
- Buffer Overflows
- ----------------
- There are several buffer overflows present in sendmail version 8.7.5 and
- earlier. Some of the buffer overflows could result in local users gaining
- unauthorized root access.
-
- Significant work has been done on sendmail version 8.8 (now in beta
- test) to eliminate the problem, and the code changes originally planned
- for 8.8 have been backported to 8.7.6 to address these vulnerabilities.
-
- II. Impact
-
- Resource Starvation
- -------------------
- Anyone with access to an account on the system can run programs or write
- files as the default user. The danger of compromising the default user
- depends primarily on the other files in your system owned by that user.
-
- For example, on many systems the line printer spool directory (e.g.,
- /var/spool/lpd) is owned by daemon; because the line printer subsystem
- runs setuid root, it may be possible to gain additional privileges.
- However, some other systems have no files owned by user daemon on the
- default system, and the only files owned by group daemon are not
- writable by that group; hence, the danger is minimal.
-
- Buffer Overflows
- ----------------
- Anyone with access to an account on the system can gain root access.
-
- III. Solution
-
- Install a patch from your vendor if one is available (Sec. A) or upgrade
- to the current version of sendmail (Sec. B). Until you can take one of
- those actions, we recommend applying the workaround described in Sec. C.
- This workaround addresses the resource starvation problem but not buffer
- overflows.
-
- In all cases, you should take the precautions listed in Sec. D.
-
- Note to beta testers of sendmail 8.8: The vulnerabilities described in
- this advisory have been fixed in the beta version of 8.8.
-
- A. Install a vendor patch.
-
- Below is a list of the vendors who have provided information about
- sendmail. Details are in Appendix A of this advisory; we will update
- the appendix as we receive more information. If your vendor's name
- is not on this list, please contact the vendor directly.
-
- Digital Equipment Corporation
- Hewlett-Packard Company
- IBM Corporation
- Linux
- Open Software Foundation
- The Santa Cruz Operation
- Silicon Graphics Inc.
- Sun Microsystems, Inc.
-
- B. Upgrade to the current version of sendmail.
-
- Install sendmail 8.7.6. This version is a "drop in" replacement for
- 8.7.x. There is no patch for 8.6.x. If you are using version 8.6 or
- earlier, you need to upgrade to the current version and rebuild your
- sendmail.cf files. Upgrading to version 8.7.6 addresses both
- vulnerabilities described in this advisory.
-
- Sendmail 8.7.6 is available from
-
- ftp://ftp.sendmail.org/ucb/src/sendmail/sendmail.8.7.6.tar.gz
- ftp://info.cert.org/pub/tools/sendmail/sendmail.8.7.6.tar.gz
- ftp://ftp.cert.dfn.de/pub/tools/net/sendmail/sendmail.8.7.6.tar.gz
-
- MD5 (sendmail.8.7.6.tar.gz) = 4a1f2179c53c9106bc8d7738f4d55667
-
- Also in that directory are .Z and .sig files. The .Z file contains the
- same bits as the .gz file, but is compressed using UNIX compress
- instead of gzip. The .sig is Eric Allman's PGP signature for the
- uncompressed tar file. The key fingerprint is
-
- Type bits/keyID Date User ID
- pub 1024/BF7BA421 1995/02/23 Eric P. Allman <eric@CS.Berkeley.EDU>
- Key fingerprint = C0 28 E6 7B 13 5B 29 02 6F 7E 43 3A 48 4F 45 29
- Eric P. Allman <eric@Reference.COM>
- Eric P. Allman <eric@Usenix.ORG>
- Eric P. Allman <eric@Sendmail.ORG>
- Eric P. Allman <eric@CS.Berkeley.EDU>
-
- We strongly recommend that when you change to a new version of sendmail
- you also change to the configuration files that are provided with that
- version.
-
- Significant work has been done to make this task easier. It is now
- possible to build a sendmail configuration file (sendmail.cf) using the
- configuration files provided with the sendmail release. Consult the
- cf/README file for a more complete explanation. Creating your
- configuration files using this method makes it easier to incorporate
- future changes to sendmail into your configuration files.
-
- Finally, for Sun users, a paper is available to help you convert your
- sendmail configuration files from the Sun version of sendmail to one
- that works with sendmail version 8.7.x. The paper is entitled
- "Converting Standard Sun Config Files to Sendmail Version 8" and was
- written by Rick McCarty of Texas Instruments Inc. It is included in
- the distribution and is located in contrib/converting.sun.configs.
-
- C. Apply a workaround.
-
- Resource Starvation
- -------------------
- Eric Allman, the author of sendmail, has provided the following
- workaround to the resource starvation vulnerability.
-
- Using smrsh as "prog" mailer limits the programs that can be run as
- the default user. Smrsh does not limit the files that can be written,
- but less damage can be done by writing files directly.
-
- The damage can be almost entirely constrained by ensuring that the
- default user is an innocuous one. Sendmail defaults to 1:1 (daemon)
- only because that is reasonably portable. A special "mailnull"
- account that is used only for this purpose would be better. This user
- should own no files and should have neither a real home directory nor
- a real shell. A sample password entry might be:
-
- mailnull:*:32765:32765:Sendmail Default User:/no/such/dir:/dev/null
-
- A corresponding entry should be made in /etc/group:
-
- mailnull:*:32765:
-
- These assume that there are no other users or groups with id = 32765
- on your system; if there are, pick some other unique value. After
- creating this user, change the line in /etc/sendmail.cf reading
-
- O DefaultUser=1:1
-
- to read
-
- O DefaultUser=mailnull
-
- If you are running 8.6.*, you will have to change the lines reading
-
- Ou1
- Og1
-
- to read
-
- Ou32765
- Og32765
-
- Finally, if you are using the m4(1)-based sendmail configuration scheme
- provided with sendmail 8.7.*, you should add the following line to the
- m4 input file, usually named sendmail.mc:
-
- define(`confDEF_USER_ID', 32765:32765)
-
- The actual values should, of course, match those in the passwd file.
-
- Buffer Overflows
- ----------------
- There is no workaround for the buffer overflow problem. To address this
- problem, you must apply your vendor's patches or upgrade to the current
- version of sendmail (version 8.7.6).
-
- D. Take additional precautions.
-
- Regardless of which solution you apply, you should take these extra
- precautions to protect your systems.
-
- * Use the sendmail restricted shell program (smrsh)
-
- With *all* versions of sendmail, use the sendmail restricted shell
- program (smrsh). You should do this whether you use vendor-supplied
- sendmail or install sendmail yourself. Using smrsh gives you improved
- administrative control over the programs sendmail executes on behalf of
- users.
-
- A number of sites have reported some confusion about the need to continue
- using the sendmail restricted shell program (smrsh) when they install a
- vendor patch or upgrade to a new version of sendmail. You should always
- use the smrsh program.
-
- smrsh is included in the sendmail distribution in the subdirectory
- smrsh. See the RELEASE_NOTES file for a description of how to integrate
- smrsh into your sendmail configuration file.
-
- smrsh is also distributed with some operating systems.
-
- * Use mail.local
-
- If you run /bin/mail based on BSD 4.3 UNIX, replace /bin/mail with
- mail.local, which is included in the sendmail distribution. It is also
- included with some other operating systems distributions, such as
- FreeBSD.
-
- Although the current version of mail.local is not a perfect solution, it
- is important to use it because it addresses vulnerabilities that are
- being exploited. For more details, see CERT advisory CA-95:02.
-
- Note that as of Solaris 2.5 and beyond, mail.local is included with the
- standard distribution. To use mail.local, replace all references to
- /bin/mail with /usr/lib/mail.local. If you are using the M4(1)-based
- configuration scheme provided with sendmail 8.X, add the following to
- your configuration file:
-
- define(`LOCAL_MAILER_PATH', /usr/lib/mail.local)
-
- * WARNING: Check for executable copies of old versions of mail programs
-
- If you leave executable copies of older versions of sendmail installed
- in /usr/lib (on some systems, it may be installed elsewhere), the
- vulnerabilities in those versions could be exploited if an intruder
- gains access to your system. This applies to sendmail.mx as well as
- other sendmail programs. Either delete these versions or change the
- protections on them to be non-executable.
-
- Similarly, if you replace /bin/mail with mail.local, remember to remove
- old copies of /bin/mail or make them non-executable.
-
- <snip>
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 22:51:01 CST
- From: CuD Moderators <cudigest@sun.soci.niu.edu>
- Subject: File 7--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 7 Apr, 1996)
-
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-
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-
- ------------------------------
-
- End of Computer Underground Digest #8.67
- ************************************
-
-
-