Re: remote DoS in Mozilla 1.0

From: Andreas Beck (becka@uni-duesseldorf.de)
Date: Tue Jun 11 2002 - 08:03:37 PDT

  • Next message: 0xFF: "Re: Re: remote DoS in Mozilla 1.0"

    Tom <tomat_private> wrote:
    > > Is this really a mozilla bug? 
    > It's a bug in X that becomes remote-exploitable through mozilla.
    
    Ack. If X can be crashed by an application, X is at fault. We all know, that
    there are "legal" ways to make X unuseable (xlock e.g.), but actually
    crashing the X server should never happen, as a faulty application may cause
    data loss in correct applications this way. Not what we expect in a Unix
    environment.
    
    > > 	(a) Fix every app to disallow font sizes bigger then <maxvalue>
    > > 	(b) Fix XFS to return an error code to the calling application 
    > > when requested font size is greater then configured <maxvalue>
    > > Personally i would go for b.
    > Personally, I would go for both, with a limitation on a, namely that
    > apps that accept remote data (i.e. mozilla) should definitely do some
    > checking on that data before handing it to the local system (i.e. X).
    
    Right. Applications that accept untrusted data have a special responsibility
    to canonicalize them in order to protect the underlying system from the
    possible side effects. No matter if the underlying system _should_ be able
    to cope with them.
    
    However that does not mean, the bug in the lower layers may remain there.
    
    Also note, that - as I already reported to Tom in PM - not all X servers
    are affected. I tested the example sites using Mozilla 1.0RC2 on an XGGI
    server which is based on rather old X-consortium code IIRC and the expected
    effects did not show up.
    
    
    CU, Andy
    
    -- 
    Andreas Beck             |  Email :  <becka@uni-duesseldorf.de>
    



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Jun 11 2002 - 11:16:45 PDT