Some vulnerabilities have been reported in IBM DB2, which can be exploited by malicious, local users to gain escalated privileges.

1) Some vulnerabilities are caused due to several DB2 binaries accessing files insecurely and having the setuid bit set. This can be exploited to create or append data to arbitrary files via symlink attacks.

2) A vulnerability is caused due to several DB2 binaries accessing files insecurely and having the setuid bit set. This can be exploited to create or append data to arbitrary files via symlink attacks and supplying the DB2INSTANCE environment variable.

Successful exploitation of (1) and (2) allows gaining root privileges.

NOTE: Windows systems are not affected.

3) A boundary error when copying data from an environment variable can be exploited to cause a heap-based buffer overflow.

4) An unspecified boundary error exists, which can be exploited to cause a stack-based buffer overflow via an overly long environment variable.

Successful exploitation of (4) allows execution of arbitrary code.

The vulnerabilities are reported in DB2 Universal Database 9.1 and 8.

Solution
DB2 Universal Database 9.1:
Further details available to Secunia VIM customers

Provided and/or discovered by
1,3,4) Joshua J. Drake, iDefense Labs
2) An anonymous person, reported via iDefense Labs

Changelog
Further details available to Secunia VIM customers

Original Advisory
iDefense:
http://labs.idefense.com/intelligence/vulnerabilities/display.php?id=480
http://labs.idefense.com/intelligence/vulnerabilities/display.php?id=481

Other references
Further details available to Secunia VIM customers

Deep Links
Links available to Secunia VIM customers