Check Point Advisories

Alt-N MDaemon IMAP Server CREATE Command Buffer Overflow

Vulnerability
Protection

Check Point Reference:	CPAI-2005-271
Date Published:	2 Dec 2009
Severity:	High
Last Updated:	Wednesday 02 December, 2009
Source:
Protection Provided by:	Security Gateway R81, R80, R77, R75
Who is Vulnerable?
Vulnerability Description	The Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) allows for the access and manipulation of electronic mail. The protocol permits the manipulation of mailboxes on a remote server and allows a remote client, among other operations, to create, delete, or rename mailboxes on the server side. The MDaemon IMAP server is an implementation of the server side of the IMAP protocol. There exists a stack-based buffer overflow vulnerability in the MDaemon IMAP server. The vulnerability is caused due to a boundary checking error during the handling of the CREATE command. An authenticated remote attacker can exploit this vulnerability to cause a denial of service or to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the server process, usually System. In a simple attack case aimed at creating a denial of service condition, the affected MDaemon and all supported services, including IMAP, SMTP and so on, will terminate. If MDaemon is not configured to restart automatically, the services will be unavailable until it is restarted manually. In a sophisticated attack scenario where the malicious user is successful in injecting and executing supplied code, the behavior of the system is dependent on the nature the injected code. Any code injected into the vulnerable component would execute in the security context of the service process, normally System.

Protection Overview

This protection will detect and block attempts to exploit this vulnerability

In order for the protection to be activated, update your Security Gateway product to the latest IPS update. For information on how to update IPS, go to SBP-2006-05, click on Protection tab and select the version of your choice.

Security Gateway R80 / R77 / R75

In the IPS tab, click Protections and find the Alt-N MDaemon IMAP Server CREATE Command Buffer Overflow protection using the Search tool and Edit the protection's settings.
Install policy on all Security Gateways.

This protection's log will contain the following information:

Attack Name: IMAP Protocol Violation.
Attack Information: Alt-N MDaemon IMAP Server CREATE command buffer overflow