Junglewise Threat Intelligence

CVE-1999-1309: Sendmail privilege escalation via large debug value

CVE-1999-1309 · Severity: high · CVSS 7.2 · Published 1996-08-30

Technologies: Sendmail.

Executive brief

Sendmail, a widely used mail transfer agent for routing and delivering email, contains a vulnerability that allows a local user to take full control of the system. By providing a specially crafted large value to the program's debugging feature, an attacker can bypass security restrictions and gain administrative (root) privileges. This could lead to a complete compromise of the server, including the ability to access any data or disrupt email services.

Technical details

A vulnerability exists in Sendmail versions prior to 8.6.7 due to improper handling of the debug (-d) command line option. A local attacker can provide an excessively large value to this parameter, leading to a memory corruption or buffer overflow condition. Because Sendmail often runs with elevated privileges (setuid root) to manage mail delivery, this flaw allows a non-privileged local user to execute arbitrary code with root privileges. The issue is resolved in Sendmail version 8.6.7.

Affected products

  • Sendmail Sendmail before 8.6.7

Timeline

  • 1994-01-01: disclosed: Vulnerability discussed in Bugtraq and CERT advisories in 1994
  • 1996-08-30: advisory: NVD publication date

References