News
Vigil@nce: IBM DB2, heap overflow via REPEAT
February 2010 by Vigil@nce
SYNTHESIS OF THE VULNERABILITY
An authenticated attacker can use the REPEAT() function, in order to generate an overflow, leading to a denial of service or to code execution with database privileges.
Severity: 2/4
Consequences: privileged access/rights, denial of service of service
Provenance: user account
Means of attack: 1 attack
Ability of attacker: technician (2/4)
Confidence: unique source (2/5)
Diffusion of the vulnerable configuration: high (3/3)
Creation date: 28/01/2010
IMPACTED PRODUCTS
IBM DB2 UDB
DESCRIPTION OF THE VULNERABILITY
The SQL REPEAT() function generates a character string, which is built by repeating a pattern. For example, to obtain "HelloHello" : SELECT REPEAT( ’Hello’, 2 )
IBM DB2 checks that the size of the string is not too long. However, by using a sub-call, the size can become over 2^32, and forces the allocation of a short memory area, and then a heap overflow.
An authenticated attacker can therefore use the REPEAT() function, in order to generate an overflow, leading to a denial of service or to code execution with database privileges.
CHARACTERISTICS
Identifiers: BID-37976, VIGILANCE-VUL-9387
