bugtraq - Re: Sendmail MIME DoS vulnerability

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Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 13:32:00 -0500 (CDT)
From: Gadi Evron <ge@...uxbox.org>
To: "Jain, Siddhartha" <Siddhartha.Jain@...-tencor.com>
Cc: bugtraq@...urityfocus.com
Subject: Re: Sendmail MIME DoS vulnerability


On Tue, 20 Jun 2006, Jain, Siddhartha wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I am trying to understand how the below mentioned sendmail
> vulnerability. 
> http://www.sendmail.com/security/advisories/SA-200605-01.txt.asc
> 
> The description says that the DoS occurs when sendmail goes in a deeply
> nested malformed MIME message and uses the MIME 8-bit to 7-bit
> conversion function. Under what conditions would sendmail use the MIME
> 8-bit to 7-bit function? Only when the remote MTA doesn't understand
> 8-bit MIME, right?
> 
> That would mean that a malicious user would have to force the victim MTA
> to relay the malformed mail to a MIME 7-bit-only MTA for the attack to
> succeed. This probably means that open relays and ISP SMTP servers are
> more vulnerable than purely incoming SMTP servers.
> 
> I am just trying to make sense of the advisory and the possible threat
> of exploit.

I didn't understand at first, either. As I attributed it to the DATA part
of the message. Apparently sendmail is smart enough to prevent the message
from not reaching the other side due to breakage using this. But I don't
get it completely yet.

	Gadi.

> 
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> - Siddhartha
>