CVE-2014-8680: Defects in GeoIP features can cause BIND to crash
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CVE-2014-8680: Defects in GeoIP features can cause BIND to crash

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Article Summary

Two defects have been identified in the GeoIP feature added in BIND 9.10 which, when triggered, cause BIND to exit with an assertion failure.

CVE: CVE-2014-8680

Document version: 2.0

Posting date: 08 December 2014

Program impacted: BIND 9

Versions affected: 9.10.0 -> 9.10.1

Severity: High

Exploitable: Remotely

Description:

Multiple errors have been identified in the GeoIP features added in BIND 9.10. Two are capable of crashing BIND; triggering either can cause named to exit with an assertion failure, resulting in a denial of service condition. A third defect is also corrected, which could have caused GeoIP databases to not be loaded properly if their location was changed while BIND 9 was running.

Only servers built to include GeoIP functionality are affected.

Impact:

The GeoIP features in BIND 9.10 are enabled by a compile-time option which is not selected by default. If you did not compile your BIND binary, or do not know whether you selected GeoIP features, you can test whether the functionality is compiled in by examining the output of the command "named -V" for "--with-geoip". Only servers which were compiled with GeoIP enabled can be affected by these defects. 

Servers which encounter either of the first two defects will terminate with an "assertion failure" error.

CVSS Score: 5.4

CVSS Vector: (AV:N/AC:H/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:C)

For more information on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System and to obtain your specific environmental score please visit: http://nvd.nist.gov/cvss.cfm?calculator&adv&version=2&vector=(AV:N/AC:H/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:C).

Workarounds:

Of the two errors, the first can occur with server binaries which were configured with GeoIP enabled if an IPv4 GeoIP database is loaded but no corresponding IPv6 database is found, or if an IPv6 GeoIP database is loaded but no corresponding IPv4 database is found. This error can be avoided by ensuring that both IPv6 and IPv4 GeoIP databases are loaded.

A workaround for the second error is to disable IPv6 support by running named with the -4 option or configuring with "listen-on-v6 { none; };".

Upgrading to a patched version is recommended.

Active exploits: No known active exploits.

Solution: Upgrade to BIND 9.10.1-P1, which is available from https://www.isc.org/downloads.

Acknowledgements: ISC would like to thank Felipe Ecker of Azion Technologies for reporting the initial issues.

Document Revision History:

1.0 Advance Notification, 20 November 2014
2.0 Public Disclosure, 08 December 2014

Related Documents:

If you'd like more information on ISC Subscription Support and Advance Security Notifications, please visit https://www.isc.org/support/.

See our BIND 9 Security Vulnerability Matrix for a complete listing of security vulnerabilities and versions affected.

Do you still have questions? Questions regarding this advisory should go to security-officer@isc.orgTo report a new issue, please encrypt your message using security-officer@isc.org's PGP key which can be found here: https://www.isc.org/downloads/software-support-policy/openpgp-key/. If you are unable to use encrypted email, you may also report new issues at: https://www.isc.org/community/report-bug/.

Note: ISC patches only currently supported versions. When possible, we indicate EOL versions affected. (For current information on which versions are actively supported, please see https://www.isc.org/downloads/.) 

ISC Security Vulnerability Disclosure Policy: Details of our current security advisory policy and practice can be found in the ISC Software Defect and Security Vulnerability Disclosure Policy.

This Knowledgebase article is the complete and official security advisory document.

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