COMMAND
CrackLib
SYSTEMS AFFECTED
Systems with CrackLib v2.5
PROBLEM
Alec Muffett posted following info about vulnerability in CrackLib
v2.5. CrackLib is a freely-available software library that
provides systems and application programmers with some control to
dissuade users from utilising easily-guessable passwords as
authentication tokens. A weakness in a published version of
CrackLib (v2.5, dated 1993) may be open to exploitation on Unix
systems utilising CrackLib in setuid-root software, leading to
compromise of system privileges.
A bug in CrackLib v2.5 *may* be exploitable to obtain root
privileges when logged on machines where CrackLib is installed as
part of a SUID program, such as "/bin/passwd". This problem will
also impact systems where CrackLib is part of the PAM (pluggable
authentication module) installation; where you are using a
commercial operating system that utilises CrackLib (typically this
applies to some Linux and FreeBSD distributions) you are advised
to contact your vendor for a patch. This was origimally found by
Jon Lewis.
SOLUTION
A upgraded/fixed version of CrackLib - v2.6 - is available from
the following website, together with patches for the v2.5
software:
http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~crypto/