Advisory: Pico Server (pServ) Local Information Disclosure

RedTeam found a local information disclosure vulnerability in Pico Server
(pServ) which results in a local user reading all files on the server with
pServ's permissions.

### Details

- Product: Pico Server (pServ)
- Affected Version: 3.3, 3.2(verified), \< 3.2 probably too
- Immune Version: none
- OS affected: all
- Security-Risk: low
- Remote-Exploit: no
- Vendor-URL: `http://pserv.sourceforge.net/`
- Vendor-Status: informed
- Advisory-URL: `https://www.redteam-pentesting.de/advisories/rt-sa-2005-012`
- Advisory-Status: published
- CVE: CAN-2005-1367
- (`https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CAN-2005-1367` \#)

### Introduction

From `http://pserv.sourceforge.net/`
Pico Server is a small web server. It is meant to be portable and
configurable.

- small, portable
- fast
- CGI-BIN support
- auto-indexing of directories
- access and error logging (see p-reporter for an analyzer)
- forking or single-connection at choice

Pico Server (pServ) is written in portable C (K&R style so it can compile on
older compilers too) and sports several options that by means of \#define
statements can customize the behavior, the performance and the feature set so
to be able to fit better the the requisites.

pServ follows symlinks without checking whether a symlink points outside the
webroot.

### More Details

pServ does not distinguish normal files from symlinks. Unfortunately it does
furthermore only check the link itself but not check if the symlink target is
still in the webroot. That is why an attacker with access to a directory on
the web server (e.g. via ftp) can put a symlink to any file on the server
there. He can then retrieve that file (if pServe has the permission to read
it) through the web server by navigating his browser to that link.

### Proof of Concept

Retrieving /etc/shadow if pServe runs as root:
1. As user go to your web-directory e.g.: cd /usr/local/var/www/userdir
2. Create a link to /etc/shadow: ln -s /etc/shadow
3. Retrieve the shadow file by pointing your browser to
`http://vuln-host:2000/userdir/shadow`

### Workaround

pServe should run as a user with minimal privileges. Files that should not be
read by unprivileged users should have their permissions set accordingly.

### Fix

The problem will not be fixed in the next version of pServ. From version 3.3
on there is a hint in the readme file that informs of this issue.

### Security Risk

The security risk is rated low because an attacker must already have access
to the system. Also usually the administrator will run pServ with minimal
privileges. On the other hand a user could place a link to some directory
(e.g.: / ) without knowing what he is doing.

### History

- 2005-04-29 found
- 2005-05-02 first attempt to inform developers
- 2005-05-02 CAN-number assigned
- 2005-05-04 second attempt to inform developers
- 2005-05-16 got the information that the problem will not be fixed. Advisory  
  published.
- 2009-05-08 Updated Advisory URL

### RedTeam

RedTeam is a penetration testing group working at the Laboratory for
Dependable Distributed Systems at RWTH-Aachen University. You can find more
Information on the RedTeam Project at
`https://www.redteam-pentesting.de`