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CAN-SPAM: mission accomplished?

LWN first looked at the CAN-SPAM act back in 2003. This U.S. law was an attempt to address the spam problem through legal means. Our impression at the time was that CAN-SPAM would do little good, and might even do harm by overriding state legislation and legitimizing certain kinds of commercial email. One of the provisions of this law was that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission was required to create a report to Congress on how effective the law is, and what improvements could be made. That report is now available [PDF]. The FTC went through a major investigation; among other things, it used its compulsory powers to require nine ISPs to provide email information. The bottom line, according to the FTC: the CAN-SPAM act has been effective in reducing spam.

Your editor's mailbox, now receiving something over 5,000 spams/day, would beg to differ from this conclusion. In fact, a deeper reading of the report suggests that CAN-SPAM has not been as effective as one might expect from reading the headlines, and that the real progress against spam has been made elsewhere.

So what has CAN-SPAM accomplished? From the report:

First, the substantive provisions of the Act have mandated adoption a number of commercial email "best practices" that many legitimate online marketers are now following. Second, the Act has provided law enforcement agencies and ISPs with an additional tool to use when bringing suit against spammers. The more than 50 cases brought to date by the FTC, the Department Justice, state Attorneys General, and ISPs demonstrate CAN-SPAM's enforcement efficacy.

Both of these claims are probably true. And, doubtless, many LWN readers are pleased to know that some of their incoming commercial email follows "best practices." But the spam problem never had much to do with "legitimate online marketers." There have been suits brought against spammers, and that can only be helpful in the end. But even lawsuits will only be so effective in a world filled with spammers. So one might well wonder how to square these limited gains against this claim from the report:

One particularly significant development since the enactment of CAN-SPAM is that the volume of spam has begun to decrease. MX Logic, an email filtering company, reported that during the first eight months of 2005, spam accounted for 67 percent of email passing through its system, a nine percent decrease from the same period one year earlier. Some ISPs report an even more dramatic decline. For example, America Online ("AOL") reported that its members received 75 percent less spam in 2004 than in 2003. Studies from other countries similarly report a decrease in the amount of spam reaching consumers' inboxes. As the Executive Director of the Institute for Spam and Internet Public Policy succinctly stated, "the average inbox doesn't have that much spam anymore."

(LWN reported on the MX Logic report last August.) A reading of the above paragraph might well lead one to the conclusion that the battle against spam has been won, and that CAN-SPAM did it. Anybody who deals with email in any serious way knows that this is not the case.

What is going on - and the report recognizes this - is that anti-spam techniques unrelated to CAN-SPAM have gotten better. The reported 75% drop for AOL users does not mean that 75% less spam has been sent in that direction; it does not even mean that there are 75% fewer AOL users, though one might be tempted to reach that conclusion. The difference is that much less spam is actually making it all the way to their mailboxes. Your editor, too, has seen a reduction in spam reaching his inbox; spamassassin nicely takes care of the bulk of it. But better filtering is not a solution to the problem; it is more like sweeping it under the carpet. And, in any case, it was not legislated by CAN-SPAM.

The report notes that a number of tactics adopted by large ISPs have helped. These include blocking outgoing access to port 25 (which imposes unfortunate costs on some users), rate-limiting email entering and leaving the system, and actively disconnecting users with known-compromised systems. Blacklisting is an effective tool; the report claims that large ISPs are able to block 80% of spam before it ever enters their mail server. The FTC also takes credit for helping to shut down open relays.

Another happy result, according to the FTC, is that "users have grown more tolerant of spam." That's one way to solve the problem.

For the future, the report notes an increase in phishing mail, as well as in spam containing malware. There are a few recommendations; one of those is the adoption of SenderID or some other sort of email authentication mechanism. The FTC would like to see the "US SAFE WEB Act" passed; this law would make it easier for the FTC to share information with agencies of other governments. It would also empower the FTC to compel information from ISPs and others while requiring confidentiality - an extension of governmental power which, given recent disclosures in the U.S., may not be entirely welcome. In fact, this recommendation, along with the agency's desire for email authentication and more rigorous requirements for WHOIS information, leads to the question of just how badly we want governments to "solve" the spam problem for us. Given that the most effective techniques we have so far did not come from governments, perhaps it's time to recognize that the solutions lie elsewhere.

Comments (4 posted)

New vulnerabilities

dropbear: buffer overflow

Package(s):dropbear CVE #(s):CVE-2005-4178
Created:December 19, 2005 Updated:December 23, 2005
Description: A buffer overflow has been discovered in dropbear, a lightweight SSH2 server and client, that may allow authenticated users to execute arbitrary code as the server user (usually root).
Alerts:
Gentoo 200512-13 2005-12-23
Debian DSA-923-1 2005-12-19

Comments (none posted)

fetchmail: multidrop bug

Package(s):fetchmail CVE #(s):CVE-2005-4348
Created:December 20, 2005 Updated:May 27, 2006
Description: Fetchmail contains a bug which allows a malicious mail server to crash the client by sending a message without headers. This occurs when running in multidrop mode.
Alerts:
rPath rPSA-2006-0084-1 2006-05-26
Fedora-Legacy FLSA:164512 2006-05-12
Slackware SSA:2006-045-01 2006-02-15
Debian DSA-939-1 2006-01-13
Ubuntu USN-233-1 2006-01-02
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:236 2005-12-23
Fedora FEDORA-2005-1187 2005-12-20
Fedora FEDORA-2005-1186 2005-12-20

Comments (none posted)

ffmpeg: buffer overflow

Package(s):ffmpeg CVE #(s):CVE-2005-4048
Created:December 15, 2005 Updated:March 17, 2006
Description: The avcodec_default_get_buffer() function of the ffmpeg library has a buffer overflow vulnerability. A user can be tricked into playing a maliciously created PNG movie, allowing the attacker to run arbitrary code with the user's privileges.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-1005-1 2006-03-16
Debian DSA-1004-1 2006-03-16
Debian DSA-992-1 2006-03-10
Gentoo 200603-03 2006-03-04
Gentoo 200602-01 2006-02-05
Gentoo 200601-06 2006-01-10
Ubuntu USN-230-2 2005-12-16
Ubuntu USN-230-1 2005-12-14
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:228 2005-12-14
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:229 2005-12-14
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:232 2005-12-14
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:230 2005-12-14
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:231 2005-12-14

Comments (none posted)

openldap: RUNPATH issues

Package(s):openldap CVE #(s):
Created:December 15, 2005 Updated:December 21, 2005
Description: OpenLDAP and Gauche have a vulnerability involving the library search path list. A local attacker who belongs to the portage group can create a shared object in the Portage temporary build directory, allowing an unauthorized privilege escalation.
Alerts:
Gentoo 200512-07 2005-12-15

Comments (none posted)

Opera: arbitrary code execution

Package(s):opera CVE #(s):CVE-2005-3750
Created:December 19, 2005 Updated:December 21, 2005
Description: Opera before 8.51 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via shell metacharacters (backticks) in a URL that another product provides in a command line argument when launching Opera. See the Opera 8.51 changelog for details.
Alerts:
Gentoo 200512-10 2005-12-18

Comments (none posted)

otrs: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):otrs CVE #(s):CVE-2005-3893 CVE-2005-3894 CVE-2005-3895
Created:December 16, 2005 Updated:February 15, 2006
Description: Several vulnerabilities were discovered in the CMS system OTRS. Multiple SQL injection vulnerabilities in index.pl in Open Ticket Request System (OTRS) 1.0.0 through 1.3.2 and 2.0.0 through 2.0.3, multiple cross-site scripting vulnerabilities in index.pl in Open Ticket Request System (OTRS) 1.0.0 through 1.3.2 and 2.0.0 through 2.0.3, and Open Ticket Request System (OTRS) 1.0.0 through 1.3.2 and 2.0.0 through 2.0.3, when AttachmentDownloadType is set to inline, renders text/html e-mail attachments as HTML in the browser when the queue moderator attempts to download the attachment.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-973-1 2006-02-15
SuSE SUSE-SR:2005:030 2005-12-16

Comments (none posted)

redhat-config-nfs: incorrect permissions

Package(s):redhat-config-nfs CVE #(s):CVE-2004-0750
Created:December 19, 2005 Updated:December 21, 2005
Description: John Buswell discovered a flaw in redhat-config-nfs that could lead to incorrect permissions on exported shares when exporting to multiple hosts. This could cause an option such as "all_squash" to not be applied to all of the listed hosts.
Alerts:
Fedora-Legacy FLSA:152787 2005-12-17

Comments (none posted)

sudo: vulnerability via scripts

Package(s):sudo CVE #(s):CAN-2005-4158 CVE-2006-0151
Created:December 16, 2005 Updated:September 1, 2006
Description: Perl and Python scripts run via Sudo can be subverted.
Alerts:
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:159 2006-08-31
Debian DSA-946-2 2006-04-08
Slackware SSA:2006-045-08 2006-02-15
SuSE SUSE-SR:2006:002 2006-01-20
Debian DSA-946-1 2006-01-20
Ubuntu USN-235-2 2006-01-09
Ubuntu USN-235-1 2006-01-05
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:234 2005-12-20
Fedora FEDORA-2005-1147 2005-12-16

Comments (none posted)

udev: insecure files in /dev/input

Package(s):udev CVE #(s):CVE-2005-3631
Created:December 20, 2005 Updated:February 28, 2006
Description: Richard Cunningham discovered a flaw in the way udev sets permissions on various files in /dev/input. It may be possible for an authenticated attacker to gather sensitive data entered by a user at the console, such as passwords.
Alerts:
Fedora-Legacy FLSA:175818 2006-02-27
Red Hat RHSA-2005:864-01 2005-12-20

Comments (none posted)

Updated vulnerabilities

a2ps: input validation error

Package(s):a2ps CVE #(s):CAN-2004-1170 CAN-2004-1377
Created:November 26, 2004 Updated:December 19, 2005
Description: The GNU a2ps utility fails to properly sanitize filenames, which can be abused by a malicious user to execute arbitrary commands with the privileges of the user running the vulnerable application. More information at Security Focus.
Alerts:
Fedora-Legacy FLSA:152870 2005-12-17
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:097 2005-06-07
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2005.003 2005-01-17
Gentoo 200501-02 2005-01-04
Debian DSA-612-1 2004-12-20
Mandrake MDKSA-2004:140 2004-11-25

Comments (none posted)

apache: cross-site scripting

Package(s):apache CVE #(s):CVE-2005-3352
Created:December 14, 2005 Updated:May 10, 2006
Description: Versions 1 and 2 of the apache web server suffer from a cross-site scripting vulnerability in the mod_imap module; see this bugzilla entry for details.
Alerts:
Slackware SSA:2006-129-01 2006-05-10
SuSE SUSE-SR:2006:004 2006-02-24
Fedora-Legacy FLSA:175406 2006-02-18
Gentoo 200602-03 2006-02-06
Fedora FEDORA-2006-052 2006-01-20
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0158-01 2006-01-17
Ubuntu USN-241-1 2006-01-12
Trustix TSLSA-2005-0074 2005-12-23
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:007 2006-01-05
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0159-01 2006-01-05
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2005.029 2005-12-14

Comments (none posted)

apache2: memory leak

Package(s):apache2 CVE #(s):CVE-2005-2970
Created:December 6, 2005 Updated:December 19, 2005
Description: A memory leak was found in the Apache 2 'worker' module in the handling of aborted TCP connections. By repeatedly triggering this situation, a remote attacker could drain all available memory, which eventually led to a Denial of Service.
Alerts:
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:233 2005-12-19
Ubuntu USN-225-1 2005-12-06

Comments (none posted)

bzip2: race condition and infinite loop

Package(s):bzip2 CVE #(s):CAN-2005-0953 CAN-2005-1260
Created:May 17, 2005 Updated:January 10, 2007
Description: A race condition in bzip2 1.0.2 and earlier allows local users to modify permissions of arbitrary files via a hard link attack on a file while it is being decompressed, whose permissions are changed by bzip2 after the decompression is complete. Also specially crafted bzip2 archives may cause an infinite loop in the decompressor.
Alerts:
rPath rPSA-2007-0004-1 2007-01-09
Debian DSA-741-1 2005-07-07
Red Hat RHSA-2005:474-01 2005-06-16
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2005.008 2005-06-10
SuSE SUSE-SR:2005:015 2005-06-07
Debian DSA-730-1 2005-05-27
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:091 2005-05-18
Ubuntu USN-127-1 2005-05-17

Comments (2 posted)

ktools: buffer overflow

Package(s):centericq CVE #(s):CVE-2005-3863
Created:December 7, 2005 Updated:August 29, 2006
Description: From the Debian-Testing alert: Mehdi Oudad "deepfear" and Kevin Fernandez "Siegfried" from the Zone-H Research Team discovered a buffer overflow in kkstrtext.h of the ktools library, which is included in (at least) centericq and motor.
Alerts:
Gentoo 200608-27 2006-08-29
Debian DSA-1088-1 2006-06-03
Debian DSA-1083-1 2006-05-31
Gentoo 200512-11 2005-12-20
Debian-Testing DTSA-23-1 2005-12-05

Comments (none posted)

courier: unauthorized access

Package(s):courier CVE #(s):CVE-2005-3532
Created:December 8, 2005 Updated:December 14, 2005
Description: The Courier mail server's courier-authdaemon can grant access to deactivated accounts, allowing for unauthorized access to information.
Alerts:
Ubuntu USN-226-1 2005-12-09
Debian DSA-917-1 2005-12-08

Comments (none posted)

cpio: directory traversal

Package(s):cpio CVE #(s):CAN-2005-1111
Created:June 20, 2005 Updated:December 26, 2005
Description: There is a vulnerability in cpio (2.6 and previous) that allows a malicious cpio file to extract to an arbitrary directory of the attackers choice. cpio will extract to the path specified in the cpio file, this path can be absolute.
Alerts:
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:237 2005-12-23
Red Hat RHSA-2005:806-01 2005-11-10
Debian DSA-846-1 2005-10-07
Ubuntu USN-189-1 2005-09-29
Red Hat RHSA-2005:378-01 2005-07-21
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:116-1 2005-07-19
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:116 2005-07-11
Trustix TSLSA-2005-0030 2005-06-24
Gentoo 200506-16 2005-06-20

Comments (1 posted)

curl: buffer overflow

Package(s):curl CVE #(s):CVE-2005-4077
Created:December 8, 2005 Updated:March 27, 2006
Description: The curl file transfer utility has a buffer overflow vulnerability in the URL authentication code. If an overly long URL is used, a buffer overflow can result, allowing for local unauthorized access.
Alerts:
Gentoo 200603-25 2006-03-27
Debian DSA-919-2 2006-03-10
Trustix TSLSA-2005-0072 2005-12-16
Red Hat RHSA-2005:875-01 2005-12-20
Gentoo 200512-09 2005-12-16
Ubuntu USN-228-1 2005-12-12
Fedora FEDORA-2005-1137 2005-12-12
Fedora FEDORA-2005-1136 2005-12-12
Debian DSA-919-1 2005-12-12
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2005.028 2005-12-10
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:224 2005-12-08
Fedora FEDORA-2005-1129 2005-12-08
Fedora FEDORA-2005-1130 2005-12-08

Comments (none posted)

cyrus-imapd: buffer overflows

Package(s):cyrus-imapd CVE #(s):CAN-2005-0546
Created:February 23, 2005 Updated:April 9, 2006
Description: Cyrus-imapd, prior to version 2.2.12, contains several buffer overflows which could be exploited by an (authenticated) attacker to run code on the server system.
Alerts:
Fedora-Legacy FLSA:156290 2006-04-04
Red Hat RHSA-2005:408-01 2005-05-17
Fedora FEDORA-2005-339 2005-04-27
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2005.005 2005-04-05
Conectiva CLA-2005:937 2005-03-17
Mandrake MDKSA-2005:051 2005-03-04
Ubuntu USN-87-1 2005-02-28
SuSE SUSE-SA:2005:009 2005-02-24
Gentoo 200502-29 2005-02-23

Comments (none posted)

dia: missing input sanitizing

Package(s):dia CVE #(s):CAN-2005-2966
Created:October 4, 2005 Updated:April 6, 2006
Description: Joxean Koret discovered that the SVG import plugin did not properly sanitize data read from an SVG file. By tricking an user into opening a specially crafted SVG file, an attacker could exploit this to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-1025-1 2006-04-06
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:187 2005-10-20
Gentoo 200510-06 2005-10-06
Debian DSA-847-1 2005-10-08
SuSE SUSE-SR:2005:022 2005-10-07
Ubuntu USN-193-1 2005-10-04

Comments (none posted)

emacs21: format string vulnerability in "movemail"

Package(s):emacs21 CVE #(s):CAN-2005-0100
Created:February 7, 2005 Updated:May 15, 2006
Description: Max Vozeler discovered a format string vulnerability in the "movemail" utility of Emacs. By sending specially crafted packets, a malicious POP3 server could cause a buffer overflow, which could be exploited to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user and the "mail" group.
Alerts:
Fedora-Legacy FLSA:152898 2006-05-12
Debian DSA-685-1 2005-02-17
Mandrake MDKSA-2005:038 2005-02-15
Gentoo 200502-20 2005-02-15
Fedora FEDORA-2005-146 2005-02-14
Fedora FEDORA-2005-145 2005-02-14
Red Hat RHSA-2005:133-01 2005-02-15
Red Hat RHSA-2005:110-01 2005-02-15
Red Hat RHSA-2005:134-01 2005-02-10
Red Hat RHSA-2005:112-01 2005-02-10
Fedora FEDORA-2005-116 2005-02-08
Fedora FEDORA-2005-115 2005-02-08
Debian DSA-671-1 2005-02-08
Debian DSA-670-1 2005-02-08
Ubuntu USN-76-1 2005-02-07

Comments (none posted)

enscript: arbitrary code execution

Package(s):enscript CVE #(s):CAN-2004-1184 CAN-2004-1185 CAN-2004-1186
Created:January 21, 2005 Updated:May 27, 2006
Description: Erik Sjölund has discovered several security relevant problems in enscript, a program to convert ASCII text into Postscript and other formats. Unsanitized input can cause the execution of arbitrary commands via EPSF pipe support. Due to missing sanitizing of filenames it is possible that a specially crafted filename can cause arbitrary commands to be executed. Multiple buffer overflows can cause the program to crash.
Alerts:
rPath rPSA-2006-0083-1 2006-05-26
Fedora-Legacy FLSA:152892 2005-12-17
Red Hat RHSA-2005:040-01 2005-02-15
Mandrake MDKSA-2005:033 2005-02-10
Gentoo 200502-03 2005-02-02
Red Hat RHSA-2005:039-01 2005-02-01
Fedora FEDORA-2005-096 2005-01-31
Fedora FEDORA-2005-092 2005-01-28
Fedora FEDORA-2005-091 2005-01-28
Fedora FEDORA-2005-016 2005-01-26
Fedora FEDORA-2005-015 2005-01-26
Ubuntu USN-68-1 2005-01-24
Debian DSA-654-1 2005-01-21

Comments (none posted)

ethereal: buffer overflow

Package(s):ethereal CVE #(s):CVE-2005-3651
Created:December 13, 2005 Updated:January 4, 2006
Description: A buffer overflow has been discovered in ethereal, a commonly used network traffic analyzer that causes a denial of service and may potentially allow the execution of arbitrary code.
Alerts:
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:002 2006-01-03
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:227 2005-12-14
Gentoo 200512-06 2005-12-14
Debian DSA-920-1 2005-12-13

Comments (none posted)

ethereal: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):ethereal CVE #(s):CVE-2005-3241 CVE-2005-3242 CVE-2005-3243 CVE-2005-3244 CVE-2005-3245 CVE-2005-3246 CVE-2005-3247 CVE-2005-3248 CVE-2005-3249 CVE-2005-3184
Created:October 25, 2005 Updated:January 10, 2006
Description: A number of security flaws have been discovered in Ethereal. On a system where Ethereal is running, a remote attacker could send malicious packets to trigger these flaws and cause Ethereal to crash or potentially execute arbitrary code.
Alerts:
Fedora-Legacy FLSA:152922 2006-01-09
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:193-2 2005-10-31
Gentoo 200510-25 2005-10-30
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:193-1 2005-10-26
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:193 2005-10-25
Red Hat RHSA-2005:809-01 2005-10-25

Comments (none posted)

evolution: format string issues

Package(s):evolution CVE #(s):CAN-2005-2549 CAN-2005-2550
Created:August 15, 2005 Updated:March 23, 2006
Description: Evolution has format string issues. SITIC advisory SA05-001 contains more information.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-1016-1 2006-03-23
SuSE SUSE-SA:2005:054 2005-09-16
Red Hat RHSA-2005:267-01 2005-08-29
Gentoo 200508-12 2005-08-23
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:141 2005-08-17
Fedora FEDORA-2005-742 2005-08-11
Fedora FEDORA-2005-743 2005-08-11

Comments (2 posted)

firefox: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):firefox CVE #(s):CAN-2005-2701 CAN-2005-2702 CAN-2005-2703 CAN-2005-2704 CAN-2005-2705 CAN-2005-2706 CAN-2005-2707 CAN-2005-2968
Created:September 22, 2005 Updated:February 15, 2006
Description: The Firefox browser has multiple vulnerabilities including problems with XBM image file processing, Unicode sequence processing, XMLHttp requests, malicious XBL binding, a JavaScript engine buffer overflow, about: pages, opening of new windows, and command line URL processing.
Alerts:
Slackware SSA:2006-045-02 2006-02-15
Fedora-Legacy FLSA:168375 2006-01-09
Ubuntu USN-200-1 2005-10-11
Ubuntu USN-155-3 2005-10-04
Debian DSA-838-1 2005-10-02
Gentoo GLSA 200509-11:02 2005-09-18
SuSE SUSE-SA:2005:058 2005-09-30
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:170 2005-09-26
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:169 2005-09-26
Slackware SSA:2005-269-01 2005-09-26
Fedora FEDORA-2005-934 2005-09-26
Fedora FEDORA-2005-933 2005-09-26
Fedora FEDORA-2005-932 2005-09-26
Fedora FEDORA-2005-931 2005-09-26
Fedora FEDORA-2005-930 2005-09-26
Fedora FEDORA-2005-929 2005-09-26
Fedora FEDORA-2005-928 2005-09-26
Fedora FEDORA-2005-927 2005-09-26
Fedora FEDORA-2005-926 2005-09-26
Ubuntu USN-186-2 2005-09-25
Ubuntu USN-186-1 2005-09-23
Red Hat RHSA-2005:789-01 2005-09-22
Red Hat RHSA-2005:785-01 2005-09-22

Comments (none posted)

Foomatic: Arbitrary command execution in foomatic-rip

Package(s):foomatic CVE #(s):CAN-2004-0801
Created:September 20, 2004 Updated:May 31, 2006
Description: There is a vulnerability in the foomatic-filters package. This vulnerability is due to insufficient checking of command-line parameters and environment variables in the foomatic-rip filter. This vulnerability may allow both local and remote attackers to execute arbitrary commands on the print server with the permissions of the spooler.
Alerts:
SuSE SUSE-SA:2006:026 2006-05-30
Fedora-Legacy FLSA:2076 2004-11-05
Conectiva CLA-2004:880 2004-10-27
Fedora FEDORA-2004-303 2004-09-21
Gentoo 200409-24 2004-09-20

Comments (none posted)

FUSE: mtab corruption through fusermount

Package(s):fuse CVE #(s):CVE-2005-3531
Created:November 22, 2005 Updated:January 24, 2006
Description: Thomas Biege discovered that fusermount fails to securely handle special characters specified in mount points. A local attacker could corrupt the contents of the /etc/mtab file by mounting over a maliciously-named directory using fusermount, potentially allowing the attacker to set unauthorized mount options.
Alerts:
Debian-Testing DTSA-27-1 2006-01-20
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:216 2005-11-24
Gentoo 200511-17 2005-11-22

Comments (none posted)

gaim: buffer overflow

Package(s):gaim CVE #(s):CAN-2005-2103
Created:August 10, 2005 Updated:February 27, 2006
Description: Gaim suffers from a heap-based buffer overflow which can be exploited via a hostile "away message" to execute arbitrary code.
Alerts:
Fedora-Legacy FLSA:158543 2006-02-25
Slackware SSA:2005-242-03 2005-08-31
Fedora FEDORA-2005-751 2005-08-17
Fedora FEDORA-2005-750 2005-08-17
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:139 2005-08-15
Gentoo 200508-06 2005-08-15
Ubuntu USN-168-1 2005-08-12
Red Hat RHSA-2005:589-01 2005-08-09

Comments (none posted)

gdb: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):gdb CVE #(s):CAN-2005-1704 CAN-2005-1705
Created:May 20, 2005 Updated:August 11, 2006
Description: Tavis Ormandy of the Gentoo Linux Security Audit Team discovered an integer overflow in the BFD library, resulting in a heap overflow. A review also showed that by default, gdb insecurely sources initialization files from the working directory. Successful exploitation would result in the execution of arbitrary code on loading a specially crafted object file or the execution of arbitrary commands.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0354-01 2006-08-10
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0368-01 2006-07-20
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:215 2005-11-23
Fedora FEDORA-2005-1033 2005-10-27
Fedora FEDORA-2005-1032 2005-10-27
Red Hat RHSA-2005:801-01 2005-10-18
Red Hat RHSA-2005:763-01 2005-10-11
Red Hat RHSA-2005:709-01 2005-10-05
Red Hat RHSA-2005:673-01 2005-10-05
Red Hat RHSA-2005:659-01 2005-09-28
Fedora FEDORA-2005-498 2005-06-29
Fedora FEDORA-2005-497 2005-06-29
Gentoo 200506-01 2005-06-01
Trustix TSLSA-2005-0025 2005-05-31
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:095 2005-05-30
Ubuntu USN-136-2 2005-05-27
Ubuntu USN-136-1 2005-05-27
Ubuntu USN-135-1 2005-05-27
Gentoo 200505-15 2005-05-20

Comments (5 posted)

gtk-pixbuf, gtk2: denial of service

Package(s):gdk-pixbuf gtk2 CVE #(s):CAN-2005-0891
Created:March 30, 2005 Updated:December 19, 2005
Description: The BMP image processing code in gdk-pixbuf and gtk2 contains a denial of service vulnerability exploitable via a specially crafted image file.
Alerts:
Fedora-Legacy FLSA:155510 2005-12-17
Fedora-Legacy FLSA:154272 2005-07-15
SuSE SUSE-SR:2005:010 2005-04-08
Mandrake MDKSA-2005:069 2005-04-07
Mandrake MDKSA-2005:068 2005-04-07
Ubuntu USN-108-1 2005-04-05
Red Hat RHSA-2005:343-01 2005-04-05
Red Hat RHSA-2005:344-01 2005-04-01
Fedora FEDORA-2005-268 2005-03-30
Fedora FEDORA-2005-267 2005-03-30
Fedora FEDORA-2005-266 2005-03-30
Fedora FEDORA-2005-265 2005-03-30

Comments (none posted)

gdk-pixbuf: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):gdk-pixbuf gtk2 CVE #(s):CVE-2005-3186 CVE-2005-2976 CVE-2005-2975
Created:November 15, 2005 Updated:March 20, 2006
Description: The gdk-pixbuf package contains an image loading library used with the GNOME GUI desktop environment. A bug was found in the way gdk-pixbuf processes XPM images. An attacker could create a carefully crafted XPM file in such a way that it could cause an application linked with gdk-pixbuf to execute arbitrary code when the file was opened by a victim.

Ludwig Nussel discovered an integer overflow bug in the way gdk-pixbuf processes XPM images. An attacker could create a carefully crafted XPM file in such a way that it could cause an application linked with gdk-pixbuf to execute arbitrary code or crash when the file was opened by a victim.

Ludwig Nussel also discovered an infinite-loop denial of service bug in the way gdk-pixbuf processes XPM images. An attacker could create a carefully crafted XPM file in such a way that it could cause an application linked with gdk-pixbuf to stop responding when the file was opened by a victim.

Alerts:
Fedora-Legacy FLSA:173274 2006-03-16
Debian DSA-913-1 2005-12-01
Debian DSA-911-1 2005-11-29
Trustix TSLSA-2005-0066 2005-11-18
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:214 2005-11-18
Ubuntu USN-216-1 2005-11-16
SuSE SUSE-SA:2005:065 2005-11-16
Gentoo 200511-14 2005-11-16
Fedora FEDORA-2005-1088 2005-11-15
Fedora FEDORA-2005-1087 2005-11-15
Fedora FEDORA-2005-1086 2005-11-15
Fedora FEDORA-2005-1085 2005-11-15
Red Hat RHSA-2005:811-01 2005-11-15
Red Hat RHSA-2005:810-01 2005-11-15

Comments (none posted)

gettext: Insecure temporary file handling

Package(s):gettext CVE #(s):CAN-2004-0966
Created:October 11, 2004 Updated:March 1, 2006
Description: gettext insecurely creates temporary files in world-writeable directories with predictable names. A local attacker could create symbolic links in the temporary files directory, pointing to a valid file somewhere on the filesystem. When gettext is called, this would result in file access with the rights of the user running the utility, which could be the root user.
Alerts:
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:051 2006-02-28
Fedora-Legacy FLSA:136323 2006-01-09
Gentoo 200410-10:02 2004-10-10
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2004.055 2004-12-23
Ubuntu USN-5-1 2004-10-27
Gentoo 200410-10 2004-10-10

Comments (1 posted)

groff: insecure temporary directory

Package(s):groff CVE #(s):CAN-2004-0969
Created:November 1, 2004 Updated:February 9, 2006
Description: Recently, Trustix Secure Linux discovered a vulnerability in the groff package. The utility "groffer" created a temporary directory in an insecure way, which allowed exploitation of a race condition to create or overwrite files with the privileges of the user invoking the program.
Alerts:
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:038 2006-02-08
Gentoo 200411-15 2004-11-08
Ubuntu USN-13-1 2004-11-01

Comments (none posted)

gzip: arbitrary command execution

Package(s):gzip CVE #(s):CAN-2005-0758
Created:August 1, 2005 Updated:January 9, 2007
Description: zgrep in gzip before 1.3.5 does not handle shell metacharacters like '|' and '&' properly when they occurred in input file names. This could be exploited to execute arbitrary commands with user privileges if zgrep is run in an untrusted directory with specially crafted file names.
Alerts:
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2007.002 2007-01-08
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:027 2006-01-30
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:026 2006-01-30
Fedora-Legacy FLSA:158801 2005-11-14
Fedora-Legacy FLSA:157696 2005-08-10
Ubuntu USN-161-1 2005-08-04
Ubuntu USN-158-1 2005-08-01

Comments (2 posted)

htdig: cross site scripting

Package(s):htdig CVE #(s):CAN-2005-0085
Created:February 14, 2005 Updated:January 10, 2006
Description: Michael Krax discovered that ht://Dig fails to validate the 'config' parameter before displaying an error message containing the parameter. This flaw could allow an attacker to conduct cross-site scripting attacks.
Alerts:
Fedora-Legacy FLSA:152907 2006-01-09
Mandrake MDKSA-2005:063 2005-03-31
Red Hat RHSA-2005:090-01 2005-02-15
Debian DSA-680-1 2005-02-14
Gentoo 200502-16 2005-02-13

Comments (none posted)

imap: buffer overflow in c-client

Package(s):imap CVE #(s):CAN-2003-0297
Created:February 18, 2005 Updated:April 9, 2006
Description: A buffer overflow flaw was found in the c-client IMAP client. An attacker could create a malicious IMAP server that if connected to by a victim could execute arbitrary code on the client machine.
Alerts:
Fedora-Legacy FLSA:184074 2006-04-04
Fedora-Legacy FLSA:152912 2005-05-12
Red Hat RHSA-2005:114-01 2005-02-18

Comments (none posted)

ipsec-tools: denial of service

Package(s):ipsec-tools CVE #(s):CVE-2005-3732
Created:December 1, 2005 Updated:June 8, 2006
Description: ipsec-tools has a remote denial of service vulnerability in the racoon daemon. If racoon is running in aggressive mode, it fails to check all peer payloads during When the daemon the IKE negotiation phase, allowing a malicious peer to crash the daemon. One should always be careful around aggressive racoons.
Alerts:
Fedora-Legacy FLSA:190941 2006-06-06
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0267-01 2006-04-25
Debian DSA-965-1 2006-02-06
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:020 2006-01-25
SuSE SUSE-SA:2005:070 2005-12-20
Gentoo 200512-04 2005-12-12
Ubuntu USN-221-1 2005-12-01

Comments (none posted)

kdebase: local root vulnerability

Package(s):kdebase CVE #(s):CAN-2005-2494
Created:September 7, 2005 Updated:August 11, 2006
Description: The kdebase package (and kcheckpass in particular) found in KDE versions 3.2.0 through 3.4.2 suffers from a lock file handling error which can enable a local attacker to obtain root access. See this advisory for details.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0582-01 2006-08-10
Debian DSA-815-1 2005-09-16
Slackware SSA:2005-251-01 2005-09-09
Ubuntu USN-176-1 2005-09-07
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:160 2005-09-06

Comments (none posted)

kdelibs: kate backup file permission leak

Package(s):kdelibs kate kwrite CVE #(s):CAN-2005-1920
Created:July 19, 2005 Updated:November 27, 2006
Description: Kate / Kwrite, as shipped with KDE 3.2.x up to including 3.4.0, creates a file backup before saving a modified file. These backup files are created with default permissions, even if the original file had more strict permissions set. See this advisory for more information.
Alerts:
Gentoo 200611-21 2006-11-27
Debian DSA-804-2 2005-11-10
Debian DSA-804-1 2005-09-08
Red Hat RHSA-2005:612-01 2005-07-27
Ubuntu USN-150-1 2005-07-21
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:122 2005-07-20
Fedora FEDORA-2005-594 2005-07-19

Comments (none posted)

kernel: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):kernel CVE #(s):CAN-2005-0449 CAN-2005-0209 CAN-2005-0529 CAN-2005-0530 CAN-2005-0532 CAN-2005-0384 CAN-2005-0210 CAN-2005-0504 CAN-2005-0003
Created:March 24, 2005 Updated:May 31, 2006
Description: A number of vulnerabilities have been found in the Linux kernel, including a PPP-related denial of service problem, an integer overflow in the epoll() code, memory corruption in the ELF loader, and exploitable overflows in the ISO9660 code.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-1082-1 2006-05-29
Debian DSA-1069-1 2006-05-20
Debian DSA-1070-1 2006-05-21
Debian DSA-1067-1 2006-05-20
Conectiva CLA-2005:945 2005-03-31
Fedora FEDORA-2005-262 2005-03-28
SuSE SUSE-SA:2005:018 2005-03-24

Comments (none posted)

kernel: key rebinding

Package(s):kernel CVE #(s):CVE-2005-3257
Created:December 14, 2005 Updated:January 4, 2006
Description: Linux kernels through 2.6.14 allow any user to rebind console keys; this opening can be exploited to inject commands when other users are logged in.
Alerts:
Ubuntu USN-231-1 2005-12-22
Fedora FEDORA-2005-1138 2005-12-13

Comments (none posted)

kernel: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):kernel CVE #(s):CVE-2005-2709 CVE-2005-2973 CVE-2005-3055 CVE-2005-3180 CVE-2005-3271 CVE-2005-3272 CVE-2005-3273 CVE-2005-3274 CVE-2005-3275 CVE-2005-3276
Created:November 22, 2005 Updated:March 15, 2006
Description: Al Viro discovered a race condition in the /proc file handler of network devices. A local attacker could exploit this by opening any file in /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/<interface>/ and waiting until that interface was shut down. Under certain circumstances this could lead to a kernel crash or even arbitrary code execution with full kernel privileges. (CVE-2005-2709)

Tetsuo Handa discovered a local Denial of Service vulnerability in the udp_v6_get_port() function. On computers which use IPv6, a local attacker could exploit this to trigger an infinite loop in the kernel. (CVE-2005-2973)

Harald Welte discovered a Denial of Service vulnerability in the USB devio driver. A local attacker could exploit this by sending an "USB Request Block" (URB) and terminating the sending process before the arrival of the answer, which left an invalid pointer and caused a kernel crash. (CVE-2005-3055)

Pavel Roskin discovered an information leak in the Orinoco wireless card driver. When increasing the buffer length for storing data, the buffer was not padded with zeros, which exposed a random part of the system memory to the user. (CVE-2005-3180)

A resource leak has been discovered in the handling of POSIX timers in the exec() function. This could be exploited to a Denial of Service attack by a group of local users. (CVE-2005-3271)

Stephen Hemminger discovered a weakness in the network bridge driver. Packets which had already been dropped by the packet filter could poison the forwarding table, which could be exploited to make the bridge forward spoofed packages. (CVE-2005-3272)

David S. Miller discovered a buffer overflow in the rose_rt_ioctl() function. By calling the function with a large "ngidis" argument, a local attacker could cause a kernel crash. (CVE-2005-3273)

Neil Horman discovered a race condition in the connection timer handling. This allowed a local attacker to set up an expiration handler which modified the connection list while the list still being traversed, which could result in a kernel crash. This vulnerability only affects multiprocessor (SMP) systems. (CVE-2005-3274)

Patrick McHardy noticed a logic error in the network address translation (NAT) connection tracker. A remote attacker could exploit this by causing two packets for the same protocol to be NATed at the same time, which resulted in a kernel crash. (CVE-2005-3275)

Paolo Giarrusso discovered an information leak in the sys_get_thread_area(). The returned structure was not properly cleared, which exposed a small amount of kernel memory to userspace programs. This could possibly expose confidential data. (CVE-2005-3276)

Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0144-01 2006-03-15
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0140-01 2006-01-19
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0101-01 2006-01-17
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:235 2005-12-21
Debian DSA-922-1 2005-12-14
Debian DSA-921-1 2005-12-14
SuSE SUSE-SA:2005:068 2005-12-14
SuSE SUSE-SA:2005:067 2005-12-06
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:220 2005-11-30
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:219 2005-11-30
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:218 2005-11-30
Fedora FEDORA-2005-1104 2005-11-28
Trustix TSLSA-2005-0064 2005-11-11
Ubuntu USN-219-1 2005-11-22

Comments (2 posted)

libconvert-uulib-perl: arbitrary code execution

Package(s):libconvert-uulib-perl CVE #(s):CAN-2005-1349
Created:May 20, 2005 Updated:January 27, 2006
Description: Mark Martinec and Robert Lewis discovered a buffer overflow in Convert::UUlib (before 1.051), a Perl interface to the uulib library, which may result in the execution of arbitrary code.
Alerts:
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:022 2006-01-26
Debian DSA-727-1 2005-05-20

Comments (1 posted)

libdbi-perl: insecure temporary file

Package(s):libdbi-perl CVE #(s):CAN-2005-0077
Created:January 25, 2005 Updated:March 2, 2006
Description: Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña from the Debian Security Audit Project discovered that the DBI library, the Perl5 database interface, creates a temporary PID file in an insecure manner. This can be exploited by a malicious user to overwrite arbitrary files owned by the person executing the parts of the library.
Alerts:
Fedora-Legacy FLSA:178989 2006-03-01
Gentoo 200501-38:03 2005-01-26
Red Hat RHSA-2005:072-01 2005-02-15
Mandrake MDKSA-2005:030 2005-02-08
Red Hat RHSA-2005:069-01 2005-02-01
Gentoo 200501-38 2005-01-26
Ubuntu USN-70-1 2005-01-25
Debian DSA-658-1 2005-01-25

Comments (none posted)

libgadu: memory alignment bug

Package(s):libgadu CVE #(s):CAN-2005-2370
Created:July 29, 2005 Updated:June 25, 2007
Description: Szymon Zygmunt and Michal Bartoszkiewicz discovered a memory alignment error in libgadu (from ekg, console Gadu Gadu client, an instant messaging program) which is included in gaim, a multi-protocol instant messaging client, as well. This can not be exploited on the x86 architecture but on others, e.g. on Sparc and lead to a bus error, in other words a denial of service.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-813-1 2005-09-15
Red Hat RHSA-2005:627-01 2005-08-09
Debian DSA-769-1 2005-07-29

Comments (none posted)

libgd2: buffer overflows in PNG handling

Package(s):libgd2 CVE #(s):CAN-2004-0990 CAN-2004-0941
Created:October 29, 2004 Updated:June 28, 2006
Description: Several buffer overflows have been discovered in libgd's PNG handling functions.
If an attacker tricked a user into loading a malicious PNG image, they could leverage this into executing arbitrary code in the context of the user opening image. Most importantly, this library is commonly used in PHP. One possible target would be a PHP driven photo website that lets users upload images. Therefore this vulnerability might lead to privilege escalation to a web server's privileges.
Multiple buffer overflows in the gd graphics library (libgd) 2.0.21 and earlier may allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via malformed image files that trigger the overflows due to improper calls to the gdMalloc function.
Alerts:
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:114 2006-06-27
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0194-01 2006-02-01
Fedora-Legacy FLSA:152838 2005-07-15
Red Hat RHSA-2004:638-01 2004-12-17
Ubuntu USN-33-1 2004-11-29
Debian DSA-602-1 2004-11-29
Debian DSA-601-1 2004-11-29
Mandrake MDKSA-2004:132 2004-11-15
Ubuntu USN-25-1 2004-11-15
Fedora FEDORA-2004-412 2004-11-11
Fedora FEDORA-2004-411 2004-11-11
Ubuntu USN-21-1 2004-11-09
Debian DSA-591-1 2004-11-09
Debian DSA-589-1 2004-11-09
Gentoo 200411-08 2004-11-03
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2004.049 2004-10-30
Ubuntu USN-11-1 2004-10-28

Comments (none posted)

libnet-ssleay-perl: weakened cryptographic operations

Package(s):libnet-ssleay-perl CVE #(s):CAN-2005-0106
Created:May 3, 2005 Updated:January 27, 2006
Description: Javier Fernandez-Sanguino Pena discovered that this library used the file /tmp/entropy as a fallback entropy source if a proper source was not set in the environment variable EGD_PATH. This can potentially lead to weakened cryptographic operations if an attacker provides a /tmp/entropy file with known content.
Alerts:
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:023 2006-01-26
Ubuntu USN-113-1 2005-05-03

Comments (none posted)

libpam-ldap: authentication bypass

Package(s):libpam-ldap CVE #(s):CAN-2005-2641