McAfee VirusScan: Insecure DT_RPATH

Background

McAfee VirusScan for Linux is a commercial antivirus solution for Linux.

Description

Jakub Moc of Gentoo Linux discovered that McAfee VirusScan was distributed with an insecure DT_RPATH which included the current working directory, rather than $ORIGIN which was probably intended.

Impact

An attacker could entice a VirusScan user to scan an arbitrary file and execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the VirusScan user by tricking the dynamic loader into loading an untrusted ELF DSO. An automated system, such as a mail scanner, may be subverted to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the process invoking VirusScan.

Workaround

Do not scan files or execute VirusScan from an untrusted working directory.

Resolution

As VirusScan verifies that it has not been modified before executing, it is not possible to correct the DT_RPATH. Furthermore, this would violate the license that VirusScan is distributed under. For this reason, the package has been masked in Portage pending the resolution of this issue.

 # emerge --ask --verbose --unmerge "app-antivirus/vlnx"