Apple Mac OS X Open Directory server vulnerable to DoS via an invalid LDAP request

Overview

Apple has reported a vulnerability in their version of OpenLDAP that is included in Apple Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server versions 10.4 to 10.4.6. If successfully exploited, this vulnerability would allow an attacker to create a denial-of-service condition.

Description

OpenLDAP is a popular open-source implementation of the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP). The software allows LDAP-aware programs on a network to get information from a server. Apple uses OpenLDAP as a part of their Open Directory product.

Apple reports that there is an assertion error in their implementation of OpenLDAP. An attacker may be able to exploit this vulnerability by sending a specially crafted invalid LDAP request to the server which triggers the assertion. The result of a successful attack would be a denial-of-service condition.

Only network access to the server is required to exploit this vulnerability.

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Impact

A remote unauthenticated attacker may be able to create a denial-of-service condition.

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Solution

Upgrade

Apply the upgrade provided by Apple. Refer to the Apple security updates in Mac OS X version 10.4.7 for more information.

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Restrict Access

Restrict access to servers running affected versions of the software to trusted hosts or networks. Apple lists the LDAP ports used by their products as 389/tcp and 389/udp.

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Vendor Information

652196

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Apple Computer, Inc. __ Affected

Updated: June 28, 2006

Status

Affected

Vendor Statement

We have not received a statement from the vendor.

Vendor Information

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

Addendum

Apple has released OS X version 10.4.7 to address this issue. See the Apple Mac OS X 10.4.7 update for details.

If you have feedback, comments, or additional information about this vulnerability, please send us [email](<mailto:[email protected]?Subject=VU%23652196 Feedback>).

CVSS Metrics

Group	Score	Vector
Base
Temporal
Environmental

References

• <http://lists.apple.com/archives/security-announce/2006/Jun/msg00000.html&gt;
• <http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/features/opendirectory.html&gt;
• <http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106439&gt;

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Apple Product Security for reporting this vulnerability. Apple, in turn, credits the Mu Security research team with reporting this issue to them.

This document was written by Ryan Giobbi.

Other Information

CVE IDs:	CVE-2006-1470
Severity Metric:	0.22 Date Public: