Bugtraq: Re: SunOS 4.1.4 fingerd

[taner () sdsc edu (Taner Halicioglu)]

On Thu, 16 May 1996, Dave Dittrich wrote:

> The trick, as I learned it, was to use @@XXX.com on Ultrix systems.
> After a quick test, I notice that single letters and "." don't work on
> Ultrix, but any digit or "@" does.  Go figure.  Probably some Berkeley
> student had a hangover the day they coded finger?
Well, the normal finger program will finger @localhost if you specify
simply:

  finger @

so when you do, for example:

  finger @@foo.bar.com

foo.bar.com will receive the finger with the data "@" and then proceed to
finger itself (localhost).  A simple denial of service attack is to do:

  finger @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@[...]@@@foo.bar.com

You can imagine what this will cause... :-)  I trivial fix is to look for
an '@' sign in the sent string (in in.fingerd) and deny the finger.

        -Taner
-------------------------=[ D. Taner Halicioglu ]=----------------------------
   taner () sdsc edu     The San Diego Supercomputer Center, Workstation Services
   taner () ucsd edu     U. of California, San Diego - Revelle - Computer Sci.
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