CVE-1999-0748

Vulnerability

Multiple buffer overflow vulnerabilities were identified in the Red Hat net-tools package [1]. These overflows occur in utilities such as ifconfig, route, and netstat when processing oversized or malformed network data. Red Hat Linux versions prior to the release of advisory RHSA1999017_01 are affected [1]. The issues can be triggered locally or via crafted network packets if the tools are used to display or manipulate such data.

Exploitation

An attacker needs the ability to send crafted network packets or manipulate network-related files that are processed by the vulnerable net-tools binaries. Local users could also exploit the overflows by providing malicious arguments to the affected commands. No authentication is required if the attacker can influence the input processed by the tools, such as through ARP tables, routing tables, or interface configurations [1].

Impact

Successful exploitation of these buffer overflows could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user running the vulnerable utility (often root), leading to full system compromise. Alternatively, a denial-of-service condition could be triggered by crashing the affected process [1].

Mitigation

Red Hat released advisory RHSA1999017_01 containing updated net-tools packages that fix the buffer overflows [1]. Users should upgrade to the patched version. No workarounds are documented; updating is the recommended action.