Executive brief
The campas CGI program included with NCSA web servers contains a flaw that allows unauthorized users to run commands on the server. By sending specially crafted web requests, an attacker could read sensitive system files or take control of the web server. This poses a significant risk to the confidentiality of server data and the overall integrity of the hosting environment.
Technical details
A command injection vulnerability exists in the campas CGI program bundled with NCSA web servers. The issue stems from improper sanitization of input in the query string, specifically failing to handle encoded carriage return characters (%0D). An unauthenticated remote attacker can exploit this by submitting a crafted URL to execute arbitrary system commands with the privileges of the web server process. This has been demonstrated to allow the reading of sensitive files such as the system password file.
Affected products
- NCSA HTTPd campas CGI program
Timeline
- 1997-07-15: disclosed: Initial publication date in NVD