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sendmail decode alias vulnerability

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sendmail decode alias vulnerability

Severity
5
CVSS
(AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:N)
Published
12/10/1996
Created
07/25/2018
Added
11/01/2004
Modified
12/04/2013

Description

The Sendmail "decode" alias can be used by remote attackers to overwrite sensitive files. Older versions of sendmail (generally released before 1992) were configured with a "decode" mail alias. All mail sent to this alias is piped through the uudecode program.

Since the uudecode format allows the filename to be specified in the encoded data, this makes it trivially easy for remote users to overwrite any file on the target system. This vulnerability is compounded by the fact that sendmail is usually configured to run as root (allowing remote users to overwrite sensitive files like /etc/passwd).

Solution(s)

  • smtp-sendmail-decode

References

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