Qualys Security Advisory: http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2015/01/27/9 Lots of info about their discovery. Apparently they developed a PoC exploit. They've also included a pretty short test program to determine if a system is vulnerable or not. Here's a gist of the test (copied from their advisory): https://gist.github.com/amlweems/6e78d03810548b4867d6
- At most sizeof(char *) bytes can be overwritten (ie, 4 bytes on 32-bit
machines, and 8 bytes on 64-bit machines). Bytes can be overwritten
only with digits ('0'...'9'), dots ('.'), and a terminating null
character ('\0').
- Despite these limitations, arbitrary code execution can be achieved.
As a proof of concept, we developed a full-fledged remote exploit
against the Exim mail server, bypassing all existing protections
(ASLR, PIE, and NX) on both 32-bit and 64-bit machines. We will
publish our exploit as a Metasploit module in the near future.
Wow, that's actually amazing! I never would have thought it possible. As tonyhb says, it will be really interesting 'in the near future' to see how they managed to do it.