ActivePerl 5.x / Cygwin 1.5.x - System Function Call Buffer Overflow

Author: Oliver Karow
type: dos
platform: windows
port: 
date_added: 2004-05-18 
date_updated: 2013-01-15 
verified: 1 
codes: CVE-2004-2022;OSVDB-16903 
tags: 
aliases:  
screenshot_url:  
application_url: 

source: https://www.securityfocus.com/bid/10375/info

ActiveState Perl and Perl for cygwin are both reported to be prone to a buffer overflow vulnerability.

The issue is reported to exist due to a lack of sufficient bounds checking that is performed on data that is passed to a Perl system() function call. This vulnerability may permit an attacker to influence execution flow of a vulnerable Perl script to ultimately execute arbitrary code. Arbitrary code execution will occur in the context of the user who is running the malicious Perl script.

perl -e "$a="A" x 256; system($a)"