FreeBSD VuXML: Documenting security issues in FreeBSD and the FreeBSD Ports Collection

mod_dosevasive -- insecure temporary file creation

Affected packages
mod_dosevasive20 < 1.10

Details

VuXML ID 88ff90f2-6e43-11d9-8c87-000a95bc6fae
Discovery 2005-01-04
Entry 2005-01-24
Modified 2005-02-22

An LSS Security Advisory reports:

When a denial of service attack is detected, mod_dosevasive will, among other things, create a temporary file which it will use to trace actions from the offensive IP address. This file is insecurely created in /tmp and it's name is easily predictable.

It is then easy for an attacker to create arbitrary files in any directory that the user under which apache runs has privileges to write.

[...] once the target file is opened, there is a race attack (although difficult to exploit) which can lead to mod_dosevasive overwriting any file that the user under which apache runs has privileges to write.

References

FreeBSD PR ports/77513
URL http://security.lss.hr/en/index.php?page=details&ID=LSS-2005-01-01