iDEFENSE Labs has reported a vulnerability in various IBM products, which can be exploited by malicious, local users to conduct certain actions on a vulnerable system with escalated privileges.

The vulnerability is caused due to an input validation error in ctstrtcasd, which is part of the Reliable Scalable Cluster Technology (RSCT) system, and can be exploited by specifying an arbitrary file as argument to the "-f" command line option.

Successful exploitation allows creation or corruption of arbitrary local files with "root" privileges.

The vulnerability reportedly affects the following products:
* IBM AIX 5L Version 5.2 on pSeries
* IBM AIX 5L Version 5.3 on pSeries
* IBM AIX 5L Version 5.2, 5.3 on an i5/OS (iSeries) partition
* IBM Tivoli System Automation (TSA) for Linux 1.1
* IBM Tivoli System Automation (TSA) for Multiplatforms 1.2
* IBM Cluster Systems Management (CSM) for Linux Version 1.4 (version 1.4 and greater)
* IBM Hardware Management Console (HMC) for pSeries Version 3
* IBM Hardware Management Console (HMC) for pSeries Version 4
* IBM General Parallel File System (GPFS) Version 2 Release 2 on Linux for xSeries and Linux for pSeries

Solution
Apply fixes or use workarounds.
Further details available in Customer Area

Provided and/or discovered by
iDEFENSE Labs

Changelog
Further details available in Customer Area

Original Advisory
IBM:
https://techsupport.services.ibm.com/server/pseries.subscriptionSvcs?mode=7&heading=AIX52&topic=SECURITY&month=200409&bulletin=datafile140506&date=20040927&label=ctstrtcasd+local+file+corruption+vulnerability

iDEFENSE:
http://www.idefense.com/application/poi/display?id=144&type=vulnerabilities

Deep Links
Links available in Customer Area