[PATCH] Make strlen range computations more conservative

Bernd Edlinger bernd.edlinger@hotmail.de
Fri Jul 27 06:49:00 GMT 2018


I have one more example similar to PR86259, that resembles IMHO real world code:

Consider the following:


int fun (char *p)
{
  char buf[16];

  assert(strlen(p) < 4); //here: security relevant check

  sprintf(buf, "echo %s - %s", p, p); //here: security relevant code
  return system(buf);
}


What is wrong with the assertion?

Nothing, except it is removed, when this function is called from untrusted code:

untrused_fun ()
{
   char b[2] = "ab";
   fun(b);
}

!!!! don't try to execute that: after "ab" there can be "; rm -rF / ;" on your stack!!!!

Even the slightly more safe check "assert(strnlen(p, 4) < 4);" would have
been removed.

Now that is a simple error and it would be easy to fix -- normally.
But when the assertion is removed, the security relevant code
is allowed to continue where it creates more damage and is
suddenly much harder to debug.


So, I start to believe that strlen range assumptions are unsafe, unless
we can prove that the string is in fact zero terminated.

I would like to guard the strlen range checks with a new option, maybe
-fassume-zero-terminated-char-arrays, and enable that under -Ofast only.

What do you think?


Thanks
Bernd.


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