[25816] in bugtraq
Directory Traversal in Wolfram Research's webMathematica
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Andrew Badr)
Mon Jun 17 13:31:23 2002
From: "Andrew Badr" <andrewbadr@hotmail.com>
To: bugtraq@securityfocus.com
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2002 11:22:09 -0500
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Message-ID: <F43qmtWNw3c4sJgnItL0002966b@hotmail.com>
Security Advisory
By Andrew Badr
-----------------
SUMMARY:
There is a vulnerability in the webMathematica software which allows remote
clients (web surfers) to read an arbitrary file on the server (assuming the
httpd-user has permission). This can reveal sensitive information such as
that stored in /etc/passwd, /etc/inetd.conf, system logs, etc. (These
examples are on UNIX -- note that Windows servers are also vulnerable.)
Software Publisher: Wolfram Research
Software Title: webMathematica
--
Software Description: http://www.wolfram.com/ says:
"webMathematica is the clear choice for adding interactive calculations to
the web. This unique technology enables you to create web sites that allow
users to compute and visualize results directly from a web browser.
Based on the world's leading technical computing software and the proven
Java Servlet technology, webMathematica is fully compatible with Mathematica
and state-of-the-art dynamic web systems."
--
Vulnerability type: Directory traversal
Vunlerability details: webMathematica generates images based on user input,
often involving mathematical figures or signs which cannot be displayed
using normal ascii-text. Generated images are named a long numeric string
(randomly generated?) and are displayed in the page presented to the user.
The ID of the image is passed to a cgi-script as an argument the URL, as
shown below, and altering this ID can trick the script into displaying other
files on the system.
--
Exploit:
Example normal URL:
http://www.domain.com/webMathematica/MSP?MSPStoreID=MSPStore888808189_2408042780&MSPStoreType=image/gif
Example exploited URL:
http://www.domain.com/webMathematica/MSP?MSPStoreID=../../../../../etc/passwd&MSPStoreType=image/gif
Note that the normal user would never see the above 'normal' URL, as the URL
only refers the generated image. It is found by viewing the page source, or
through browser-specific methods. In Internet Explorer, for example, one
would right-click on the generated image and click 'Properties'.
--
Possible Workaround: Directly reference the generated image, thereby
avoiding use of the 'MSP' script.
Problem Elimination: Wolfram Research was able to fix this problem within
hours of notification.
--
More info:
Encoded characters like %20 ( ), %22 ("), %3B (;) are all decoded in the
script but I can't find a way to escape the display command, whatever it is,
to e.g. execute a file.
For different file types, changing the MSPStoreType argument from
"image/gif" to "text" may give better results.
--
The vendor HAS been notified of this vulnerability.
The software has been fixed.
---
-Andrew Badr
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