Apple Terminal fails to properly sanitize input for "x-man-page" URI

Overview

Apple Terminal on Mac OS X fails to sanitize x-man-page URIs, allowing an attacker to execute arbitrary commands.

Description

Mac OS X 10.3 includes a URI handler called x-man-page. It causes Apple Terminal to display a man page by using a URI of this form: x-man-page://command. Applications such as Safari can link to x-man-page resources.

Apple Terminal fails to sanitize input to the x-man-page URI handler. Escape characters embedded in the x-man-page URI could cause commands to be executed in the Terminal session.

---

Impact

By convincing a user to view an HTML document (e.g., a web page or HTML email message), an attacker could execute arbitrary commands or code with the privileges of the user. The attacker could take any action as the user. If the user has administrative privileges, the attacker could take complete control of the user’s system.

---

Solution

Apply a patch
Apple advises all users to apply Apple Security Update 2005-005, as it fixes this flaw and other critical security flaws.

---

Vendor Information

356070

Filter by status: All Affected Not Affected Unknown

Filter by content: __ Additional information available

__ Sort by: Status Alphabetical

Expand all

Javascript is disabled. Click here to view vendors.

Apple Computer Inc. __ Affected

Notified: March 01, 2005 Updated: May 06, 2005

Status

Affected

Vendor Statement

This is addressed in Security Update 2005-005. Further information is available at:

<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301528&gt;

Vendor Information

The vendor has not provided us with any further information regarding this vulnerability.

Addendum

US-CERT has no additional comments at this time.

If you have feedback, comments, or additional information about this vulnerability, please send us [email](<mailto:[email protected]?Subject=VU%23356070 Feedback>).

CVSS Metrics

Group	Score	Vector
Base
Temporal
Environmental

References

• <http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301528&gt;
• <http://remahl.se/david/vuln/011/&gt;
• <http://secunia.com/advisories/15227/&gt;
• <http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/13502/&gt;
• <http://www.osvdb.org/displayvuln.php?osvdb_id=16084&gt;

Acknowledgements

Thanks to David Remahl for reporting this vulnerability.

This document was written by Will Dormann.

Other Information

CVE IDs:	CVE-2005-1342
Severity Metric:	22.31 Date Public: