Oracle PL/SQL Apache Module
February 6th, 2002NGSSoftware Insight Security Research Advisory
Name: Oracle PL/SQL Apache Module
Systems Affected: Oracle 9iAS
Platforms: Sun SPARC Solaris 2.6
MS Windows NT/2000 Server
HP-UX 11.0/32-bit
Severity: High Risk
Vendor URL: http://www.oracle.com/
Author: David Litchfield (david@nextgenss.com)
Date: 6th February 2002
Advisory number: #NISR06022002B
Advisory URL: http://www.nextgenss.com/advisories/oramodplsbos.txt
Issue
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There are multiple buffer overflows in the PL/SQL module for Oracle Application Server
running on Apache web servers that allow the execution of arbitary code. A non-overflow
DoS also exists.
Description
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The web service with Oracle 9iAS is powered by Apache and provides many application environments
with which to offer services from the site. These include SOAP, PL/SQL, XSQL and JSP. There are
multiple buffer overrun vulnerabilities in the PL/SQL Apache module that allow the execution
of arbitrary code.
Details
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The PL/SQL module exists to allow remote users to call procedures exported by a PL/SQL package
stored in the database server. This module can be overflowed by making an overly
long request to the plsql module; An overly long password set in the Authorization HTTP client
header; An overly long cache directory name in the cache form; Setting an overly long password
in the adddad form;
Some of these attacks require that attacker know the name of the adminPath whereas others do not.
All allow the execution of arbitrary code. On Windows NT/2000 systems the Oracle Apache web server
by default runs in the context of the local SYSTEM account so any code will run with full privileges.
A further problem also exists whereby a request made to the pls module with an HTTP client Authorization
header set but with no auth type will cause the server to access violate. The server needs to be restarted
after an attack.
Fix Information
***************
NGSSoftware alerted Oracle to these problems between December 2001 and early January 2002. Oracle
has produced a patch to fix these problems and can be downloaded from the Metalink site
(http://metalink.oracle.com)
