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Security

A flurry of kernel security fixes

April 26, 2006

This article was contributed by Jake Edge.

Over the last month, there have been eleven separate releases in the 2.6.16 stable kernel series, seven of which were single-patch releases for security related issues. This flurry of security fixes would make one think that there was a concerted effort by an individual or organization to try and find kernel security problems, but that is not the case. It is entirely coincidental that all of these fixes came about at around the same time.

A chronological look at each of these fixes gives a nice picture of the diverse places that kernel developers are looking for bugs in general and security bugs in particular.

Roughly a week after the original 2.6.16 release, the 2.6.16.1 release contained 19 patches, including one that fixed CVE-2006-1242. Code had been put into the kernel in the 2.4 series to stop leaking information in the form of fragment IDs in TCP packets that did not require them. Packets that have the DF (don't fragment) bit set do not need a fragment ID and eliminating that information is a countermeasure to a technique called idle scanning. Unfortunately when the original change was made, the response to a certain kind of packet (a SYN-ACK packet) was missed and that was discovered in March.

The 2.6.16.2 release came out on 7 April and had a quite a few fixes including a change to the sysfs interface covered by LWN two weeks ago.

On the 11th and 12th of April, there were 3 releases, each of which included just one security fix. 2.6.16.3 is a fix for a bug that would allow a user to oops the kernel by passing invalid arguments to the keyctl utility (CVE-2006-1522). If the user specified a key as the target for an "add key" operation, rather than a keyring, a invalid dereference in the kernel would result.

A call to BUG_ON() in the __group_complete_signal() function (which is part of the RCU signal handling code) "has unknown impact and attack vectors" and was patched as 2.6.16.4. If a user process could cause the condition in the BUG_ON call, it could oops the kernel and lead to a denial of service. (CVE-2006-1523).

A difference in the way Intel and AMD 64-bit CPUs handle non-canonical return addresses led to the 2.6.16.5 release. The Intel CPU reports the exception on the SYSRET instruction which causes the kernel exception handler to run using the user stack. (CVE-2006-0744). Kernel processing using a user created stack would seem rife with opportunities for exploitation.

The 2.6.16.6 release came out a week later with another long list of patches, two of which have security implications. The m32r architecture had a bug in the get_user and put_user macros that did not check the address passed to them which would allow access outside of the process address space.

A more widespread issue was addressed with a patch in this release and then fixed in the 2.6.16.7 release later in the day. The MADV_REMOVE vulnerability (CVE-2006-1524) has been present in kernels since 2.4 and allows local users to potentially bypass the access restrictions on a read-only attachment of shared memory. The user process could call mprotect() and gain write permission on a piece of memory even though the memory was explicitly set to be read-only when shared via the shared memory IPC mechanism.

Prior to 2.6.16.8, the kernel was vulnerable to users causing a kernel panic by requesting a route for a multicast IP address (CVE-2006-1525). Using a simple 'ip' command from the shell would cause a null pointer dereference in ip_route_input and panic the kernel. This is another example of a local denial of service vulnerability.

2.6.16.9 patches a problem that affected both Linux and FreeBSD kernels running on AMD processors which would allow a malicious process running on the same CPU to determine portions of the state of floating point instructions in a target process. AMD had some comments on the bug and provided some background information on why they chose to implement the FXRSTOR and FXSAVE instructions differently than they are implemented in Intel processors. Essentially, these two instructions do not save and restore all of the same registers as Intel does and this allows information to leak from one process to another. The patch ensures that the floating point state is constant between context switches on affected processors. (CVE-2006-1056)

Last on our tour of kernel security fixes is a patch made in 2.6.16.11 and released on Monday that disallows backslashes in path components unless POSIX paths have been negotiated. This change is for the CIFS (aka Samba) filesystem code; one can only imagine the kinds of havoc one could cause by putting backslashes (the standard Windows path separator) into CIFS paths. This bug is CVE-2006-1863, but the CVE database just shows a placeholder page for that number at the time of this writing.

Observant readers will have noticed that we skipped over 2.6.16.10 as it was a release with quite a few patches, none of which were noted as being security related.

As this laundry list of issues shows, there are a wide variety of places that kernel bugs can impact security, but the many eyes of kernel developers seem to be finding and fixing them. This process plays out in the open and that can give competitors ammunition to claim that Linux is less secure than certain proprietary systems. Reasonable people would more likely come to the conclusion that Linux developers are much more interested in finding these issues and fixing them. The kernel community has no interest in hiding vulnerabilities or playing games with security patch descriptions to make the OS look more secure. PR considerations just do not seem to be on the radar of the technical contributors and that is just as it should be.

Comments (2 posted)

New vulnerabilities

abc2ps: buffer overflows

Package(s):abc2ps abcmidi CVE #(s):CVE-2006-1513 CVE-2006-1514
Created:April 25, 2006 Updated:April 26, 2006
Description: Erik Sjölund discovered that abc2ps, a translator for ABC music description files into PostScript, does not check the boundaries when reading in ABC music files resulting in buffer overflows.

The abcmidi-yaps utility suffers from similar problems.

Alerts:
Debian DSA-1043-1 2006-04-26
Debian DSA-1041-1 2006-04-25

Comments (none posted)

beagle: command line injection

Package(s):beagle CVE #(s):
Created:April 21, 2006 Updated:April 26, 2006
Description: Chris Evans discovered that while indexing, Beagle will build certain command lines in an insecure manner. When Beagle executes external helper applications, it is possible to cause beagle to execute arbitrary commands as the user running beagle.
Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2006-440 2006-04-21

Comments (none posted)

ethereal: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):ethereal CVE #(s):CVE-2006-1937 CVE-2006-1933 CVE-2006-1932 CVE-2006-1935 CVE-2006-1934 CVE-2006-1938 CVE-2006-1939 CVE-2006-1940 CVE-2006-1936
Created:April 25, 2006 Updated:May 12, 2006
Description: There are multiple vulnerabilities in Ethereal version up to 0.10.14, including various dissector crashes and an off-by-one error in the OID printing routine.
Alerts:
SuSE SUSE-SR:2006:010 2006-05-12
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0420-01 2006-05-03
Debian DSA-1049-1 2006-05-02
Gentoo 200604-17 2006-04-27
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:077 2006-04-25
Fedora FEDORA-2006-461 2006-04-26
Fedora FEDORA-2006-456 2006-04-25

Comments (none posted)

fbida: insecure temporary file creation

Package(s):fbida CVE #(s):CVE-2006-1695
Created:April 24, 2006 Updated:May 22, 2006
Description: The fbgs script in the fbi package 2.01-1.4, when the TMPDIR environment variable is not defined, allows local users to overwrite arbitrary files via a symlink attack on temporary files in /var/tmp/fbps-[PID].
Alerts:
Debian DSA-1068-1 2006-05-20
Gentoo 200604-13 2006-04-23

Comments (none posted)

kernel: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):kernel CVE #(s):CVE-2006-1056 CVE-2006-1525 CVE-2006-1524 CVE-2006-0744 CVE-2006-1522 CVE-2006-1055
Created:April 20, 2006 Updated:May 4, 2006
Description: Multiple kernel vulnerabilities have been fixed, including an x87 information leak between processes, an ip_route_input panic, a MADV_REMOVE vulnerability, an mprotect write permission problem, insecure MPBL0010 driver sysfs permissions, an x86_64 force IRET issue, RCU signal handling, a key addition oops, a sysfs write buffer issue and more.
Alerts:
Ubuntu USN-281-1 2006-05-04
Trustix TSLSA-2006-0022 2006-04-21
Fedora FEDORA-2006-423 2006-04-20
Fedora FEDORA-2006-421 2006-04-19

Comments (none posted)

php: several vulnerabilities

Package(s):php CVE #(s):CVE-2006-0996 CVE-2006-1494 CVE-2006-1608
Created:April 25, 2006 Updated:May 24, 2006
Description: There are several vulnerabilities in PHP v5.1.2 and earlier.
  • A cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in phpinfo (info.c) allows remote attackers to inject arbitrary web script or HTML via long array variables. (CVE-2006-0996)
  • A directory traversal vulnerability in file.c allows local users to bypass open_basedir restrictions and allows remote attackers to create files in arbitrary directories via the tempnam function. (CVE-2006-1494)
  • The copy function in file.c allows local users to bypass safe mode and read arbitrary files via a source argument containing a compress.zlib:// URI. (CVE-2006-1608)
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0501-02 2006-05-23
Fedora FEDORA-2006-289 2006-05-16
Gentoo 200605-08 2006-05-08
SuSE SUSE-SA:2006:024 2006-05-05
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0276-01 2006-04-25
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:074 2006-04-24

Comments (none posted)

ruby1.8: denial of service

Package(s):ruby1.8 CVE #(s):CVE-2006-1931
Created:April 24, 2006 Updated:May 10, 2006
Description: The HTTP/XMLRPC server in Ruby before 1.8.2 uses blocking sockets, which allows attackers to cause a denial of service (blocked connections) via a large amount of data.
Alerts:
Gentoo 200605-11 2006-05-10
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0427-01 2006-05-09
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:079 2006-04-25
Ubuntu USN-273-1 2006-04-24

Comments (none posted)

xzgv: heap overflow

Package(s):xzgv CVE #(s):CVE-2006-1060
Created:April 21, 2006 Updated:June 12, 2006
Description: Andrea Barisani of Gentoo Linux discovered xzgv and zgv allocate insufficient memory when rendering images with more than 3 output components, such as images using the YCCK or CMYK colour space. When xzgv or zgv attempt to render the image, data from the image overruns a heap allocated buffer.
Alerts:
Gentoo 200604-10:02 2006-04-21
Debian DSA-1038-1 2006-04-22
Debian DSA-1037-1 2006-04-21
Gentoo 200604-10 2006-04-21

Comments (none posted)

Updated vulnerabilities

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)

blender: integer overflow

Package(s):blender CVE #(s):CVE-2005-4470
Created:January 6, 2006 Updated:June 15, 2006
Description: Damian Put discovered that Blender did not properly validate a 'length' value in .blend files. Negative values led to an insufficiently sized memory allocation. By tricking a user into opening a specially crafted .blend file, this could be exploited to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the Blender user.
Alerts:
Debian-Testing DTSA-29-1 2006-06-15
Debian DSA-1039-1 2006-04-24
Gentoo 200601-08 2006-01-13
Ubuntu USN-238-2 2006-01-06
Ubuntu USN-238-1 2006-01-06

Comments (none posted)

bsdgames: buffer overflow

Package(s):bsdgames CVE #(s):CVE-2006-1744
Created:April 17, 2006 Updated:April 19, 2006
Description: A buffer overflow problem has been discovered in sail, a game contained in the bsdgames package, a collection of classic textual Unix games, which could lead to games group privilege escalation.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-1036-1 2006-04-17

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)

cpio: arbitrary code execution

Package(s):cpio CVE #(s):CVE-2005-4268
Created:January 2, 2006 Updated:May 8, 2007
Description: Richard Harms discovered that cpio did not sufficiently validate file properties when creating archives. Files with e. g. a very large size caused a buffer overflow. By tricking a user or an automatic backup system into putting a specially crafted file into a cpio archive, a local attacker could probably exploit this to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the target user (which is likely root in an automatic backup system).
Alerts:
rPath rPSA-2007-0094-1 2007-05-07
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0245-02 2007-05-01
Ubuntu USN-234-1 2006-01-02

Comments (none posted)

crossfire: arbitrary code execution

Package(s):crossfire CVE #(s):CVE-2006-1010
Created:March 14, 2006 Updated:April 24, 2006
Description: It was discovered that Crossfire, a multiplayer adventure game, performs insufficient bounds checking on network packets when run in "oldsocketmode", which may possibly lead to the execution of arbitrary code.
Alerts:
Gentoo 200604-11 2006-04-22
Debian DSA-1001-1 2006-03-14

Comments (none posted)

curl: heap-based buffer overflow

Package(s):curl CVE #(s):CVE-2006-1061
Created:March 21, 2006 Updated:June 28, 2006
Description: Heap-based buffer overflow in cURL and libcURL 7.15.0 through 7.15.2 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary commands via a TFTP URL (tftp://) with a valid hostname and a long path.
Alerts:
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2006.012 2006-06-28
Trustix TSLSA-2006-0016 2006-03-24
Gentoo 200603-19 2006-03-21
Fedora FEDORA-2006-189 2006-03-21

Comments (none posted)

Cyrus-SASL: DIGEST-MD5 Pre-Authentication Denial of Service

Package(s):cyrus-sasl CVE #(s):CVE-2006-1721
Created:April 21, 2006 Updated:September 4, 2007
Description: Cyrus-SASL contains an unspecified vulnerability in the DIGEST-MD5 process that could lead to a Denial of Service. An attacker could possibly exploit this vulnerability by sending specially crafted data stream to the Cyrus-SASL server, resulting in a Denial of Service even if the attacker is not able to authenticate.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0878-01 2007-09-04
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0795-01 2007-09-04
SuSE SUSE-SA:2006:025 2006-05-05
Fedora FEDORA-2006-515 2006-05-04
Debian DSA-1042-1 2006-04-25
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:073 2006-04-24
Ubuntu USN-272-1 2006-04-24
Gentoo 200604-09 2006-04-21

Comments (none posted)

dia: buffer overflows

Package(s):dia CVE #(s):CVE-2006-1550
Created:April 3, 2006 Updated:May 3, 2006
Description: Three buffer overflows were discovered in the Xfig file format importer. By tricking a user into opening a specially crafted .fig file with dia, an attacker could exploit this to execute arbitrary code with the user's privileges.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0280-01 2006-05-03
Gentoo 200604-14 2006-04-23
Fedora FEDORA-2006-261 2006-04-05
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:062 2006-04-03
Ubuntu USN-266-1 2006-04-03

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)

fcheck: insecure temporary file

Package(s):fcheck CVE #(s):CVE-2006-1753
Created:April 17, 2006 Updated:April 19, 2006
Description: Steve Kemp from the Debian Security Audit project discovered that a cronjob contained in fcheck, a file integrity checker, creates a temporary file in an insecure fashion.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-1035-1 2005-04-15

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)

firefox: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):firefox mozilla CVE #(s):CVE-2006-0749 CVE-2006-1724 CVE-2006-1727 CVE-2006-1728 CVE-2006-1729 CVE-2006-1730 CVE-2006-1731 CVE-2006-1732 CVE-2006-1733 CVE-2006-1734 CVE-2006-1735 CVE-2006-1737 CVE-2006-1738 CVE-2006-1739 CVE-2006-1740 CVE-2006-1741 CVE-2006-1742
Created:April 14, 2006 Updated:June 9, 2006
Description: There are multiple vulnerabilities in Firefox and related products including Thunderbird, SeaMonkey and the Mozilla Suite. This CERT Advisory contains additional information.
Alerts:
Ubuntu USN-296-1 2006-06-09
Fedora-Legacy FLSA:189137-2 2006-06-06
Fedora-Legacy FLSA:189137-1 2006-06-06
Gentoo 200605-09 2006-05-08
Slackware SSA:2006-123-02 2006-05-04
Fedora FEDORA-2006-494 2006-05-03
Fedora FEDORA-2006-493 2006-05-03
Fedora FEDORA-2006-491 2006-05-03
Fedora FEDORA-2006-490 2006-05-03
Fedora FEDORA-2006-487 2006-05-03
Fedora FEDORA-2006-495 2006-05-03
Fedora FEDORA-2006-492 2006-05-03
Fedora FEDORA-2006-486 2006-05-03
Fedora FEDORA-2006-489 2006-05-03
Fedora FEDORA-2006-488 2006-05-03
Ubuntu USN-276-1 2006-05-03
Slackware SSA:2006-120-01 2006-05-01
Gentoo 200604-18 2006-04-28
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:078 2006-04-25
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:076 2006-04-25
Debian DSA-1044-1 2006-04-26
SuSE SUSE-SA:2006:022 2006-04-25
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:075 2006-04-24
Slackware SSA:2006-114-01 2006-04-25
Gentoo 200604-12 2006-04-23
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0330-01 2006-04-21
SuSE SUSE-SA:2006:021 2006-04-20
Ubuntu USN-271-1 2006-04-19
Fedora FEDORA-2006-411 2006-04-18
Fedora FEDORA-2006-410 2006-04-18
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0329-01 2006-04-18
Slackware SSA:2006-107-01 2006-04-17
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0328-01 2006-04-14

Comments (1 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)

freeradius: authentication bypass

Package(s):freeradius CVE #(s):CVE-2006-1354
Created:March 24, 2006 Updated:June 5, 2006
Description: An unspecified vulnerability in FreeRADIUS 1.0.0 up to 1.1.0 allows remote attackers to bypass authentication or cause a denial of service (server crash) via "Insufficient input validation" in the EAP-MSCHAPv2 state machine module.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-1089-1 2006-06-03
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:066 2006-04-05
Gentoo 200604-03 2006-04-04
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0271-01 2006-04-04
SuSE SUSE-SA:2006:019 2006-03-28
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:060 2006-03-23

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)

gdm: improper file permissions

Package(s):gdm CVE #(s):CVE-2006-1057
Created:April 19, 2006 Updated:May 2, 2007
Description: The .ICEauthority file may be created with the wrong ownership and permissions; gdm 2.14.2 fixes the problem.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0286-02 2007-05-01
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:083 2006-05-09
Ubuntu USN-278-1 2006-05-03
Debian DSA-1040-1 2006-04-24
Fedora FEDORA-2006-338 2006-04-19

Comments (none posted)

gnupg: incorrect signature verification

Package(s):gnupg CVE #(s):CVE-2006-0049
Created:March 13, 2006 Updated:May 15, 2006
Description: Another vulnerability has been found in GnuPG. "Signature verification of non-detached signatures may give a positive result but when extracting the signed data, this data may be prepended or appended with extra data not covered by the signature. Thus it is possible for an attacker to take any signed message and inject extra arbitrary data."
Alerts:
Fedora-Legacy FLSA:185355 2006-05-12
Trustix TSLSA-2006-0014 2006-03-20
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0266-01 2006-03-15
Slackware SSA:2006-072-02 2006-03-14
Fedora FEDORA-2006-147 2006-03-13
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:055 2006-03-13
Ubuntu USN-264-1 2006-03-13
Debian DSA-993-2 2006-03-13
Gentoo 200603-08 2006-03-10
Debian DSA-993-1 2006-03-10

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)

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)

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)

libpam-ldap: authentication bypass

Package(s):libpam-ldap CVE #(s):CAN-2005-2641
Created:August 25, 2005 Updated:October 6, 2006
Description: libpam-ldap, the PAM LDAP interface, has a vulnerability in which it fails to authenticate with an LDAP server which is not configured properly, allowing an authentication bypass.
Alerts:
rPath rPSA-2006-0183-1 2006-10-05
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:190 2005-10-20
Gentoo 200508-22 2005-08-31
Debian DSA-785-1 2005-08-25

Comments (none posted)

mailman: denial of service

Package(s):mailman CVE #(s):CVE-2006-0052
Created:March 30, 2006 Updated:June 9, 2006
Description: Mailman 2.1.5 and below have a denial of service vulnerability in the Scrubber.py script. If a maliciously created message with a mime multi part format is received, mailman delivery can be stopped.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0486-01 2006-06-09
SuSE SUSE-SR:2006:008 2006-04-07
Debian DSA-1027-1 2006-04-06
Ubuntu USN-267-1 2006-04-03
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:061 2006-03-29

Comments (none posted)

mozilla: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):mozilla CVE #(s):CVE-2005-4134 CVE-2006-0292 CVE-2006-0296
Created:February 2, 2006 Updated:May 4, 2006
Description: Mozilla has three new vulnerabilities. The Javascript interpreter has a problem with dereferencing objects. A user can visit a specially crafted web page which can crash the browser or cause it to execute arbitrary code.

The XULDocument.persist() function has a bug that can be triggered by viewing specially crafted web sites, RDF data can be injected into the localstore.rdf file, allowing arbitrary javascript code to be executed.

The Mozilla history saving mechanism is vulnerable to a denial of service attack, visiting sites with extra-long titles can cause a crash or very slow startup the next time the browser is run.

Alerts:
Ubuntu USN-275-1 2006-04-27
Debian DSA-1046-1 2006-04-27
Fedora-Legacy FLSA:180036 2006-02-23
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:037 2006-02-07
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:036 2006-02-07
Fedora FEDORA-2006-076 2006-02-02
Fedora FEDORA-2006-075 2006-02-02
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0200-01 2006-02-02
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0199-01 2006-02-02

Comments (none posted)

Mozilla Thunderbird: remote code execution and DoS

Package(s):mozilla-thunderbird CVE #(s):CVE-2006-0884
Created:March 3, 2006 Updated:May 4, 2006
Description: The WYSIWYG rendering engine in Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.7 and earlier allows user-complicit attackers to bypass javascript security settings and obtain sensitive information or cause a crash via an e-mail containing a javascript URI in the SRC attribute of an IFRAME tag, which is executed when the user edits the e-mail.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-1051-1 2006-05-04
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:052 2006-03-02

Comments (1 posted)

mplayer: integer overflows

Package(s):mplayer CVE #(s):CVE-2006-1502
Created:April 9, 2006 Updated:May 1, 2006
Description: MPlayer 1.0pre7try2 has multiple integer overflow vulnerabilities. Remote attackers can maliciously craft an ASF file or an AVI file in order to cause a denial of service.
Alerts:
Gentoo 200605-01 2006-05-01
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:068 2006-04-07

Comments (none posted)

MySQL: logging bypass

Package(s):mysql CVE #(s):CVE-2006-0903
Created:April 4, 2006 Updated:May 21, 2008
Description: MySQL 5.0.18 and earlier allows local users to bypass logging mechanisms via SQL queries that contain the NULL character, which are not properly handled by the mysql_real_query function. NOTE: this issue was originally reported for the mysql_query function, but the vendor states that since mysql_query expects a null character, this is not an issue for mysql_query.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0364-01 2008-05-21
Ubuntu USN-274-2 2006-05-15
Ubuntu USN-274-1 2006-04-27
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:064 2006-04-03

Comments (2 posted)

ncpfs: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):ncpfs CVE #(s):CAN-2005-0013 CAN-2005-0014
Created:January 31, 2005 Updated:May 15, 2006
Description: Erik Sjolund discovered two vulnerabilities in the programs bundled with ncpfs: there is a potentially exploitable buffer overflow in ncplogin (CAN-2005-0014), and due to a flaw in nwclient.c, utilities using the NetWare client functions insecurely access files with elevated privileges (CAN-2005-0013).
Alerts:
Fedora-Legacy FLSA:152904 2006-05-12
Fedora FEDORA-2005-435 2005-08-16
Red Hat RHSA-2005:371-01 2005-05-17
Mandrake MDKSA-2005:028 2005-02-01
Gentoo 200501-44 2005-01-30

Comments (none posted)

ntp: uses wrong gid

Package(s):ntp CVE #(s):CAN-2005-2496
Created:August 26, 2005 Updated:August 11, 2006
Description: When starting xntpd with the -u option and specifying the group by using a string not a numeric gid the daemon uses the gid of the user not the group. This problem is now fixed by this update.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0393-01 2006-08-10
Mandriva MDKSA-2005:156 2005-09-06
Debian DSA-801-1 2005-09-05
Ubuntu USN-175-1 2005-09-01
Fedora FEDORA-2005-812 2005-08-26

Comments (none posted)

openmotif: buffer overflows

Package(s):openmotif CVE #(s):CVE-2005-3964
Created:December 29, 2005 Updated:July 27, 2006
Description: The libUil component of the OpenMotif toolkit has a pair of buffer overflow vulnerabilities that can possibly be used for the execution of arbitrary code.
Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2006-854 2006-07-26
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0272-01 2006-04-04
Gentoo 200512-16 2005-12-28

Comments (none posted)

OpenSSH: double shell expansion

Package(s):openssh CVE #(s):CVE-2006-0225
Created:January 23, 2006 Updated:July 20, 2006
Description: OpenSSH has a double shell expansion vulnerability in local to local and remote to remote copy with scp.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0298-01 2006-07-20
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0044-01 2006-03-07
Ubuntu USN-255-1 2006-02-21
Gentoo 200602-11 2006-02-20
Fedora-Legacy FLSA:168935 2006-02-18
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2006.003 2006-02-18
Slackware SSA:2006-045-06 2006-02-15
SuSE SUSE-SA:2006:008 2006-02-14
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:034 2006-02-06
Fedora FEDORA-2006-056 2006-01-23

Comments (none posted)

openvpn: arbitrary code execution

Package(s):openvpn CVE #(s):CVE-2006-1629
Created:April 11, 2006 Updated:April 27, 2006
Description: OpenVPN 2.0 through 2.0.5 allows remote malicious servers to execute arbitrary code on the client by using setenv with the LD_PRELOAD environment variable.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-1045-1 2006-04-27
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:069 2006-04-10

Comments (none posted)

perl: setuid vulnerabilities

Package(s):perl CVE #(s):CAN-2005-0155 CAN-2005-0156
Created:February 2, 2005 Updated:August 11, 2006
Description: There are two vulnerabilities with perl when it is used in a setuid mode. The PERLIO_DEBUG environment variable can be used to overwrite arbitrary files; there is also an associated buffer overflow which can be exploited to gain root access.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0605-01 2006-08-10
Fedora FEDORA-2005-353 2005-05-02
Red Hat RHSA-2005:103-01 2005-02-15
Gentoo 200502-13 2005-02-11
SuSE SUSE-SR:2005:004 2005-02-11
Mandrake MDKSA-2005:031 2005-02-08
Red Hat RHSA-2005:105-01 2005-02-07
Ubuntu USN-72-1 2005-02-02

Comments (none posted)

phpbb2: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):phpbb2 CVE #(s):CVE-2005-3310 CVE-2005-3415 CVE-2005-3416 CVE-2005-3417 CVE-2005-3418 CVE-2005-3419 CVE-2005-3420 CVE-2005-3536 CVE-2005-3537
Created:December 22, 2005 Updated:February 11, 2008
Description: The phpbb2 web forum has a number of vulnerabilities including: a web script injection problem, a protection mechanism bypass, a security check bypass, a remote global variable bypass, cross site scripting vulnerabilities, an SQL injection vulnerability, a remote regular expression modification problem, missing input sanitizing, and a missing request validation problem.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-925-1 2005-12-22

Comments (none posted)

phpMyAdmin: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):phpmyadmin CVE #(s):CVE-2005-4079 CVE-2005-3665
Created:December 12, 2005 Updated:November 20, 2006
Description: Stefan Esser reported multiple vulnerabilities found in phpMyAdmin. The $GLOBALS variable allows modifying the global variable import_blacklist to open phpMyAdmin to local and remote file inclusion, depending on your PHP version (CVE-2005-4079, PMASA-2005-9). Furthermore, it is also possible to conduct an XSS attack via the $HTTP_HOST variable and a local and remote file inclusion because the contents of the variable are under total control of the attacker (CVE-2005-3665, PMASA-2005-8).
Alerts:
Debian DSA-1207-2 2006-11-19
Debian DSA-1207-1 2006-11-09
SuSE SUSE-SA:2006:004 2006-01-26
Gentoo 200512-03 2005-12-11

Comments (none posted)

pound: HTTP Request Smuggling Attack

Package(s):pound CVE #(s):CVE-2005-3751
Created:January 10, 2006 Updated:June 8, 2006
Description: HTTP requests with conflicting Content-Length and Transfer-Encoding headers could lead to HTTP Request Smuggling Attack, which can be exploited to bypass packet filters or poison web caches.
Alerts:
Gentoo 200606-05 2006-06-07
Debian DSA-934-1 2006-01-09

Comments (none posted)

Py2Play: remote execution of arbitrary Python code

Package(s):Py2Play