Cisco IOS Line Printer Daemon Buffer Overflow Vulnerability

Andy Davis has reported a vulnerability in Cisco IOS, which potentially can be exploited by malicious people to cause a DoS (Denial of Service) or compromise a vulnerable system.

The vulnerability is caused due to a boundary error within the LPD service of Cisco IOS when printing an error message containing an overly long (more than 99 bytes) hostname. This can be exploited to cause a stack-based buffer overflow by e.g. connecting to the default LPD port (515/TCP).

Successful exploitation may allow the execution of arbitrary code but requires that the LPD daemon is enabled (disabled by default) and that the attacker can control the hostname of the router.

Solution:
Update to 12.2(18)SXF11, 12.4(16a), or 12.4(2)T6.

Provided and/or discovered by:
Andy Davis, IRM Plc.

Original Advisory:
IRM Plc.:

http://www.irmplc.com/index.php/155-Advisory-024

Cisco:

http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/707/cisco-sr-20071010-lpd.shtml