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CVE-2008-3111: Sun JDK: Privilege escalation

CVE-2008-3111 has a CVSS v2 base score of 10.0 (the maximum on that scale) and affects Sun JDK. Per its scoring, it can be exploited over the network, without authentication. The scored impact on confidentiality, integrity and availability is the highest available.

Vulnerability description

Multiple buffer overflows in Sun Java Web Start in JDK and JRE 6 before Update 4, JDK and JRE 5.0 before Update 16, and SDK and JRE 1.4.x before 1.4.2_18 allow context-dependent attackers to gain privileges via an untrusted application, as demonstrated by (a) an application that grants itself privileges to (1) read local files, (2) write to local files, or (3) execute local programs; and as demonstrated by (b) a long value associated with a java-vm-args attribute in a j2se tag in a JNLP file, which triggers a stack-based buffer overflow in the GetVMArgsOption function; aka CR 6557220.

Severity breakdown

CVSS v2.0 10.0: AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

  • Access vector: Network. Exploitable remotely over the network.
  • Access complexity: Low. No special conditions are required.
  • Authentication: None. No authentication is needed.
  • Confidentiality impact: Complete. Total information disclosure.
  • Integrity impact: Complete. Total loss of integrity.
  • Availability impact: Complete. Total shutdown of the component.

Underlying weakness

CWE-20: Improper Input Validation

The product receives input or data, but it does not validate or incorrectly validates that the input has the properties that are required to process the data safely and correctly.

CWE-119: Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer

The product performs operations on a memory buffer, but it reads from or writes to a memory location outside the buffer's intended boundary.

Affected products

  • Sun JDK: 5.0 update_1; 5.0 update_10; 5.0 update_11; 5.0 update_12; 5.0 update_13; 5.0 update_14; 5.0 update_15; 5.0 update_2; 5.0 update_3; 5.0 update_4; 5.0 update_5; 5.0 update_6
  • Sun JRE: 1.4; 1.4.2_01; 1.4.2_02; 1.4.2_03; 1.4.2_04; 1.4.2_05; 1.4.2_06; 1.4.2_07; 1.4.2_8; 1.4.2_9; 1.4.2_10; 1.4.2_11
  • Sun Sdk: 1.4; 1.4.2; 1.4.2_01; 1.4.2_02; 1.4.2_03; 1.4.2_04; 1.4.2_05; 1.4.2_06; 1.4.2_07; 1.4.2_08; 1.4.2_09; 1.4.2_10

References