Majordomo info leakage, all versions

From: Marco van Berkum (m.v.berkumat_private)
Date: Mon Feb 03 2003 - 18:30:54 PST

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    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
    Title                   : Majordomo info leakage (all versions) 
    Date                    : 03/02/2003 
    Article by              : Marco van Berkum (m.v.berkumat_private) 
    Bug finder              : Jakub Klausa (jackeat_private) 
    Investigated by         : Jakub Klausa and Marco van Berkum 
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
    
    Introduction:
    --------------
    Some while ago Jakub Klausa mailed me about a problem regarding the
    Majordomo mailinglist program. At first we were not sure if it was a one
    time problem or a common issue, so we checked several other servers
    and installed Majordomo ourselves and found ALL Majordomo versions to
    be vulnerable, also the latest Majordomo 2 (alpha).
    
    The problem:
    ---------------
    All email addresses can be extracted from mailinglists for which
    'which_access' is set to "open" in the configuration file, which_access
    is set to "open" by default !!
    
     Majordomo 1.94.5 documentation quote:
    
        "8.  By default, anyone (even non-subscribers) can use the commands
             "who", "which", "index", and "get" on a list.  If you create an
             empty file named "listname.private" in the $listdir directory, only
             members of the list can use those commands."
    
    Typical case of RTFDOC of course, but still, why isn't the private
    configuration file the default one (?!), now people actually have to read
    the documentation to protect their lists against evil spammers. We all
    know that admins do not always read the docs (uhuh).
    
    So this bug can be exploited without being subscribed to any mailinglist
    on that server when "which_access" is set to open. This bug can be exploited
    by sending:
    
       which @
    
       or
    
       which .
    
    To the Majordomo daemon. Majordomo will then match "@" (or ".") on all the
    mailinglists that have 'which_access' set to "open". This then matches
    all email addresses that are subscribed to that list.
    
    There is a slight difference between the new Majordomo 2 (alpha) and the
    current Majordomo 1.94.x branch.
    
    Majordomo 1.94.x gives output such as this:
    
    >>>> which @
    The string '@' appears in the following
    entries in lists served by majordomoat_private:
    
    List                    Address
    ====                    =======
    test-list               userat_private
    test-list               anotheruserat_private
    another-list            satanat_private
    another-list            bushat_private
    
    etc...
    
    Majordomo 2 also has the bug, not as much as the 1.94.x though:
    
    >>>> which @
    The pattern "/\@/i"
    matched the following subscriptions.
    
    Matches for the devils mailing list:
      satanat_private
    -- Match limit of 1 for devils exceeded.
    
    Matches for the britney mailing list:
      eminemat_private
    -- Match limit of 1 for britney exceeded.
    
    Impact:
    -------
    High. Not only privacy is the issue here, this bug could be used by evil
    spammers to fill their databases. And the users did much of their work for 
    them already, as the victims are usually well targeted (subject-specific 
    mailinglists come to mind).
    
    Solution:
    ---------
    general: 
    Read the documentation regarding $listname.private and set all which_access 
    to "closed", or update to Majordomo 2 alpha, which still requires the same attention.
    
    Majordomo 1.94.5 and earlier:
    As mentioned by the documentation that comes with Majordomo 1.94.5, 
    create an empty file named "$listname.private" in the $listdir. 
    It will only reduce the group of people being able to pick up all the addresses
    to the ones subscribed to the list. Check your current configurations for 
    open which_access, close them. 
    
    Majordomo 2:
    The authors responded quickly and changed default configuration settings 
    to be "closed". Get the latest CVS version, and check your current 
    configurations for open which_access, which_access should be closed at 
    any time.
    
    Jakub made a patch for Majordomo 1.94.5.
    
    [Patch]
    This is a patch for Majordomo 1.94.5, which makes the Majordomo 
    ignore the 'which' request if they don't contain e-mail address-like
    string as a parameter (roughly).
    
    
    --- majordomo.orig      Mon Feb  3 13:23:45 2003
    +++ majordomo   Mon Feb  3 13:23:23 2003
    @@ -624,6 +624,11 @@
     
     sub do_which {
         local($subscriber) = join(" ", @_) || &valid_addr($reply_to);
    +    if ($subscriber !~ /^[0-9a-zA-Z\.\-\_]+\@[0-9a-zA-Z\.\-]+\.[a-zA-Z]{2,3}$/) {
    +       
    +       &log("which abuse -> $subscriber passed as an argument.");
    +       exit(0);
    +       };
         local($count, $per_list_hits) = 0;
         # Tell the requestor which lists they are on by reading through all
         # the lists, comparing their address to each address from each list
    
    
    Cheers
    
    Marco van Berkum / http://ws.obit.nl / m.v.berkumat_private
    Jakub Klausa / jackeat_private
    
    -- 
    find / -user your -name base -exec chown us:us {}\;
     ----------------------------------------
    |    Marco van Berkum / MB17300-RIPE     |
    | m.v.berkumat_private / http://ws.obit.nl |
     ----------------------------------------
    



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