bugtraqat_private list issue: NcFTPd

From: Mike Gleason (mgleasonat_private)
Date: Thu Jun 20 2002 - 15:53:23 PDT

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    >>>  (this came from a bugtraq posting by 3APA3Aat_private)
    >>>
    >>> On Thu, Jun 20, 2002 at 02:00:51PM +0400, 3APA3A wrote:
    >>>
    >>>>
    >>>>   3.  There  was  also  report by DocSoft <docsoft at mail.ru> on 
    >>>> buffer
    >>>>   overflow  in  some  older version of ncftpd on Solaris , but I was 
    >>>> not
    >>>>   able to reproduce it at least on demo version of ncftpd >= 2.5.0 
    >>>> under
    >>>>   FreeBSD,  so  it  was  bounced.  Overflow  is on FTP DELE command 
    >>>> with
    >>>>   buffer  >  256  bytes. Feel free to contact DocSoft if you can 
    >>>> confirm
    >>>>   vulnerability.
    
    
    I can't read Russian, but I am guessing that DocSoft is making a similar 
    incorrect conclusion to what the older versions of the Nessus scanner 
    used to do.  Below is a snippet from the page 
    http://hackcastle.hut.ru/p_bugs.htm, which contains some cyrillic 
    characters, so it may not be legible, but:
    
        $B'"'Q'T'Q(B $B'S(B NcFTPd Server [author: DocSoft]
        $B'1'`'c'^'`'d'b'V'd'n(B
        $B'2'V'Q']'Z'Y'Q'h'Z'q(B DoS-$B'Q'd'Q'\'Z(B $B'_'Q(B FTP
    
    I do see "DoS" so I assume that the DocSoft is concluding that sending a 
    very long "DELE AAAA...AAA" is causing NcFTPd to exit because the 
    connection is abruptly closed.  Often when a server process abruptly 
    closes the connection it means that the server process has crashed, 
    resulting in (a minimum) of a denial-of-service.
    
    However, NcFTPd has code to detect clients looking for buffer overflows, 
    and when it detects a client attempting one, NcFTPd forcefully 
    disconnects the user.  Older versions used to simply boot them off with 
    no message, but that was changed so that it sends back an FTP "550" 
    response first, _then_ it disconnects them.
    
    Long story short: sending "DELE " followed by a huge number of 
    characters does not cause any version of NcFTPd Server to crash or 
    overflow an internal buffer.
    
    Mike Gleason
    NcFTP Software
    http://www.NcFTP.com
    



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