vulnerability note CVE-2012-5195

Perl: memory corruption via the x operator

Synthesis of the vulnerability

When an attacker can modify parameters of the "x" operator of a Perl program, he can obtain a memory fragment, stop the application, or possibly execute code.
Impacted products: Debian, MBS, MES, Mandriva Linux, RHEL, Unix (platform).
Severity: 2/4.
Creation date: 26/10/2012.
Identifiers: BID-56287, CVE-2012-5195, DSA 2586-1, MDVSA-2013:005, MDVSA-2013:113, NDSA20121025, RHSA-2013:0685-01, VIGILANCE-VUL-12094.

Description of the vulnerability

The "x" operator of Perl multiplies a text string (by successive duplications). For example:
  "Hello"x3
produces the string:
  HelloHelloHello

The Perl_pp_repeat() function of the pp.c file implements the "x" operator. However, if the requested multiplier is superior to 2G (with a one byte string), the memset() function can copy too many data. Depending on the context, this error corrupts the memory, or returns an uninitialized memory block to the user.

When an attacker can modify parameters of the "x" operator of a Perl program, he can therefore obtain a memory fragment, stop the application, or possibly execute code.
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