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The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace

[This article was contributed by Tom Owen]

The Friday release of the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace may have been overshadowed by the recent departure of Richard Clarke, President Bush's Cybersecurity advisor. It certainly didn't get a big build up. But now we have the "final" version of what will doubtless be a continuously evolving strategy.

The draft released in September generated apathy and dismissal after widespread unsourced reports of tech firms lobbying to remove references to insecure "out of the box" configurations and wireless hazards. The biggest change over the draft is external: the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) now exists, with a budget and a head, and by far the majority of the action items fall on it.

The strategic objective is clear:

It is the policy of the United States to prevent or minimize disruptions to critical information infrastructures and thereby protect the people, the economy, the essential human and government services, and the national security of the United States.

as is the purpose of the document:

The purpose of this document is to engage and empower Americans to secure the portions of cyberspace that they own, operate, control, or with which they interact.

The core of the strategy is the five national priorities

  • A security response system
  • A threat & vulnerability reduction system
  • A Security awareness and training program
  • Security within government operations
  • National and International security co-operation
Within the strategy, each priority generates five to fifteen actions and recommendations. The actions typically fall on the federal government, typically the DHS or the United States generally, while the recomendations are for the private sector and academia.

Some consistent themes inform the discussion of all priorities:

  • The threat is real: the US depends on the integrity of cyberspace, and that integrity can now be undone by enemies.
  • Most of what's needed is outside the scope of Government: beyond protecting its own operations and the commons, the work has to be done by corporations, colleges and the public.
  • Public and private can, must, work together
  • Privacy and liberty must be protected. It's not that prominent, but it's a pleasant surprise to see it at all.

Regarding the called-for national security response system:

The National Cyberspace Security Response System will involve public and private institutions and cyber centers to perform analysis, conduct watch and warning activities, enable information exchange, and facilitate restoration efforts.

The plan appears to be mandating DHS to co-ordinate between Government agencies, and academic and private sector agents. Obvious candidates would include CERT, the AV vendors' labs, disaster recovery providers and perhaps operators like Bugtraq.

The challenge is twofold. Firstly, to co-ordinate their work on attacks and vulnerabilities, before and even -- using fax, conferencing and and voicemail -- during an attack, and secondly, to ensure that the private sector is using the resources created. It appears that there will be an effort to remove antitrust obstacles to this co-operation.

Responding to security incidents is important, but so is preventing those incidents before they happen. The strategy asks private and government agencies to communicate better to find and protect against potential problems. Even before the recent "Slammer" worm, others like Nimda and Code Red had made it clear that threats, once released, spread faster than fixes. So it is important to find and fix vulnerabilities before they are exploited.

One stand out point is a clear intention to use criminal justice more aggressively: this might be a good time to stop writing stupid viruses for fun. The strategy gets more specific here. Examples of the work planned include

  • Improving infrastructure: the Commerce Deptartment's review of a national transition to IPv6 and the DHS's intention to bang heads together to get progress on securing DNS and BGP, together with longer term efforts to to add source address verification and secure out-of-band management to the Internet
  • Securing plant and equipment control networks to exclude terrorists from air-traffic control, dams and chemical plants.
  • Addressing software vulnerabilities: establishing a neutral clearinghouse, with, interestingly, a national policy defining appropriate vulnerability disclosure, central testing for patches to Government systems, and promotion of tools and best practice for patch distribution.

Then, there is the call for a national security awareness and training program. This priority addresses a slightly broader range than most. The traditional targets for security training: users, admins and developers, are there, but the plan goes further:

Many information-system vulnerabilities exist because of a lack of cyberspace security awareness on the part of ... procurement officials, auditors, chief information officers, chief executive officers, and corporate boards.

Getting these people trained is not going to be easy. School curricula, awareness programs and certification and the other plan items can reach professionals and users, but getting informed discussion between corporate policymakers at the country club will take something more -- there may be a role for the insurers here.

Of course, the government must also worry about cleaning up its own act, so it is not surprising to see internal security as an important part of this plan. The plan in this area is blandly conventional, revealing that government practice is no better than the private sector. One of the few mentions of a specific technology, wireless, occurs under this heading.

The last item (national and international security coordination) seems like a bland commitment to improve international co-operation, encouraging foreign countries to achieve effective criminal law and participate in information-sharing programs. But early on comes this jaw-dropper:

When a nation, terrorist group, or other adversary attacks the United States through cyberspace, the U.S. response need not be limited to criminal prosecution. The United States reserves the right to respond in an appropriate manner.

The strategy doesn't expand on this point, and responsibility for that action falls on no specific agency, but when it happens, it'll be on the evening news.

Given the source, the document as a whole is at least as good as could have been hoped. Part of the value comes from what's left out:

  • Theres no hysteria about encryption or crackers
  • No plan to wall off the US and unplug those nasty foreigners
  • No dramatic legislative program
  • No mandation or prohibition of specific technologies and vendors

High-level strategic planning can be used to hide a lot of vagueness and unreality, as the broad scope needed in the language and objectives makes it hard to visualise what is intended. This hasn't happened here. The Department of Homeland Security's interest in the network comes into clearer focus. Some of the organisations and networks which will protect cyberspace are making their first appearance here. And we can see that some people are asking the right questions.

Comments (1 posted)

February CRYPTO-GRAM Newsletter

Bruce Schneier's CRYPTO-GRAM newsletter for February is out. It looks at Matt Blaze's lock-picking disclosure (and the reaction to it), SQL Slammer worm notes, the importance of authentication, and more. "I'd rather have as much information as I can to make an informed decision about security. I'd rather have the information I need to pressure vendors to improve security. I don't want to live in a world where locksmiths can sell me a master key system that they know doesn't work or where the government can implement security measures without accountability."

Full Story (comments: none)

New vulnerabilities

mailman: mailman 2.1 cross site scripting vulnerabilities

Package(s):mailman CVE #(s):
Created:February 17, 2003 Updated:February 19, 2003
Description: The email variable and the default error page in mailman 2.1 contains cross site scripting vulnerabilities.

Read the the full advisory for the details.

Alerts:
Gentoo 200302-05 2003-02-17

Comments (none posted)

nethack: buffer overflow

Package(s):nethack, slashem, falconseye CVE #(s):CAN-2003-0358 CAN-2003-0359
Created:February 18, 2003 Updated:July 15, 2003
Description: Overflowing a buffer in nethack may lead to privilege escalation to games uid.

Read the the full advisory for the details.

Note that falconseye does not contain the file permission error CAN-2003-0359 which affected some other nethack packages.

Alerts:
Debian DSA-350-1 2003-07-15
Debian DSA-316-3 2003-06-17
Debian DSA-316-2 2003-06-11
Debian DSA-316-1 2003-06-11
Gentoo 200302-08 2003-02-18

Comments (none posted)

OpenSSL: plaintext exposure vulnerability

Package(s):openssl CVE #(s):CAN-2003-0078
Created:February 19, 2003 Updated:March 6, 2003
Description: A vulnerability has been found in OpenSSL that, given the right conditions, could lead to the exposure of transactions in plain text. This problem looks difficult to exploit (it requires a man-in-the-middle attack, among other things), but one can't be too sure, so the OpenSSL project has released versions 0.9.7a (with the fix and some new features) and 0.9.6i (with fixes only). See the announcement for details.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2003:062-11 2003-03-06
SuSE SuSE-SA:2003:011 2003-02-26
Conectiva CLA-2003:570 2003-02-24
Debian DSA-253-1 2003-02-24
Mandrake MDKSA-2003:020 2003-02-21
Trustix 2003-0005 2003-02-20
Gentoo 200302-10 2003-02-20
EnGarde ESA-20030220-005 2003-02-20
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2003.013 2003-02-19

Comments (none posted)

pam_xauth: root exploit

Package(s):pam_xauth CVE #(s):CAN-2002-1160
Created:February 13, 2003 Updated:July 10, 2003
Description: The pam_xauth module is used to forward xauth information from user to user in applications such as 'su'.

Andreas Beck discovered that versions of pam_xauth supplied with Red Hat Linux since version 7.1 would forward authorization information from the root account to unprivileged users. This could be used by a local attacker to gain access to an administrator's X session. In order to exploit this vulnerability, the attacker would have to get the administrator, as root, to use su to the account belonging to the attacker.

Alerts:
Conectiva CLA-2003:693 2003-07-10
Mandrake MDKSA-2003:017-1 2003-04-28
Red Hat RHSA-2003:035-10 2003-02-12

Comments (none posted)

php: arbitrary file access and code execution

Package(s):php, mod_php CVE #(s):
Created:February 18, 2003 Updated:February 19, 2003
Description: Kosmas Skiadopoulos discovered a serious security vulnerability [0] in the CGI SAPI of PHP version 4.3.0. PHP [1] contains code for preventing direct access to the CGI binary with configure option "--enable-force-cgi-redirect" and php.ini option "cgi.force_redirect". In PHP 4.3.0 there is a bug which renders these options useless. Please note that this bug does NOT affect any of the other SAPI modules such as the Apache or ISAPI modules.

Anyone with access to websites hosted on a web server which employs the CGI module may exploit this vulnerability to gain access to any file readable by the user under which the webserver runs. A remote attacker could also trick PHP into executing arbitrary PHP code if attacker is able to inject the code into files accessible by the CGI. This could be for example the web server access-logs.

References:
[0] http://www.php.net/release_4_3_1.php
[1] http://www.php.net/

Alerts:
Gentoo 200302-09 2003-02-19
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2003.010 2003-02-18

Comments (none posted)

syslinux: security issues in installer

Package(s):syslinux CVE #(s):
Created:February 18, 2003 Updated:February 19, 2003
Description: From the syslinux changelog:

"Security flaws have been found in the SYSLINUX installer when running setuid root. Rewrite the SYSLINUX installer so it uses mtools instead. It therefore now requires mtools (specifically mcopy and mattrib) to exist on your system, but it will not require root privileges and SHOULD NOT be setuid."

Alerts:
Gentoo 200302-06 2003-02-17

Comments (none posted)

util-linux: predictable mcookie results

Package(s):util-linux CVE #(s):
Created:February 14, 2003 Updated:February 19, 2003
Description: The util-linux package provides the mcookie utility, a tool for generating random cookies that can be used for X authentication. The util-linux packages that were distributed with Mandrake Linux 8.2 and 9.0 had a patch that made it use /dev/urandom instead of /dev/random, which resulted in the mcookie being more predictable than it would otherwise be. This patch has been removed in these updates, giving mcookie a better source of entropy and making the generated cookies less predictable. Thanks to Dirk Mueller for pointing this out.
Alerts:
Mandrake MDKSA-2003:016 2003-02-13

Comments (2 posted)

Updated vulnerabilities

Heap corruption vulnerability in at

Package(s):at at, sudo, xchat CVE #(s):CAN-2002-0004
Created:May 20, 2002 Updated:May 15, 2003
Description: The at command has a potentially exploitable heap corruption bug. (First LWN report:  January 17th).
Alerts:
EnGarde ESA-20030515-015 2003-05-15
Yellow Dog YDU-20020127-9 2002-01-27
SuSE SuSE-SA:2002:003 2001-01-16
Slackware sl-1011706104 2002-01-22
Red Hat RHSA-2002:015-15 2002-02-07
Red Hat RHSA-2002:015-13 2002-01-22
Mandrake MDKSA-2002:007 2002-01-18
Debian DSA-102-2 2002-01-18
Debian DSA-102-1 2002-01-16

Comments (none posted)

BIND8: Multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):bind CVE #(s):CAN-2002-1219 CAN-2002-1220 CAN-2002-1221
Created:November 13, 2002 Updated:March 6, 2003
Description: Three new vulnerabilities have been found in version 8 of the Berkeley Internet Domain Server; see this ISS advisory, the CERT Advisory CA-2002-31, or the November 14 LWN Security Page for details.

Red Hat has sent out an alert (not a regular advisory) suggesting that customers apply its previous BIND updates, which upgrade the system to BIND9.

Alerts:
Sorcerer SORCERER2003-03-06 2003-03-06
SCO Group CSSA-2002-059.0 2002-12-19
Trustix 2002-0076 2002-11-15
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2002.011 2002-11-15
Debian DSA-196-1 2002-11-14
Conectiva CLA-2002:546 2002-11-14
Mandrake MDKSA-2002:077 2002-11-14
SuSE SuSE-SA:2002:044 2002-11-13
EnGarde ESA-20021114-029 2002-11-14

Comments (1 posted)

bind buffer overflow vulnerability in DNS resolver libraries

Package(s):bind glibc CVE #(s):CAN-2002-0651 CAN-2002-0684
Created:July 8, 2002 Updated:September 30, 2003
Description: The BIND 4.9.8-OW2 patch and BIND 4.9.9 release (and thus 4.9.9-OW1) include fixes for a libc related vulnerability which does not affect Linux. Updates from the Internet Software Consortium (ISC) are available from here.

No release or branch of Openwall GNU/*/Linux (Owl) is known to be affected, due to Olaf Kirch's fixes for this problem getting into the GNU C library more than two years ago.

Unfortunatly that does not mean that Linux systems are not vulnerable. Similar code, without Olaf Firch's fixes, is in the glibc getnetbyXXX functions. These functions are described in the SuSE alert as " used by very few applications only, such as ifconfig and ifuser, which makes exploits less likely."

CERT Advisory: CA-2002-19 Buffer Overflow in Multiple DNS Resolver Libraries

CAN-2002-0651
CAN-2002-0684

Alerts:
Mandrake MDKSA-2002:050 2002-08-13
Yellow Dog YDU-20020810-3 2002-08-10
Eridani ERISA-2002:035 2002-08-09
Red Hat RHSA-2002:133-13 2002-08-08
SCO Group CSSA-2002-034.0 2002-08-05
Yellow Dog YDU-20020801-2 2002-08-01
Eridani ERISA-2002:028 2002-07-25
Red Hat RHSA-2002:139-10 2002-07-22
EnGarde ESA-20020724-018 2002-07-24
Mandrake MDKSA-2002:043 2002-07-16
Trustix 2002-0061 2002-07-15
Gentoo glibc-20020713 2002-07-13
Conectiva CLA-2002:507 2002-07-11
SuSE SuSE-SA:2002:026 2002-07-09
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2002.006 2002-07-04

Comments (1 posted)

Canna server: exploitable buffer overrun

Package(s):canna CVE #(s):CAN-2002-1158 CAN-2002-1159
Created:December 10, 2002 Updated:September 30, 2003
Description: Canna is a kana-kanji conversion server which is necessary for Japanese language character input.

A buffer overflow bug in the Canna server up to and including version 3.5b2 allows a local user to gain the privileges of the user 'bin' which could lead to further exploits. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the name CAN-2002-1158 to this issue.

A lack of validation of requests has been found that affects Canna version 3.6 and earlier. A malicious remote user could exploit this vulnerability to leak information, or cause a denial of service attack. (CAN-2002-1159)

See also http://canna.sourceforge.jp/sec/Canna-2002-01.txt

CAN-2002-1158
CAN-2002-1159

Alerts:
SCO Group CSSA-2003-005.0 2003-01-21
Debian DSA-224-1 2002-01-08
Gentoo 200212-8 2002-12-20
Red Hat RHSA-2002:246-18 2002-12-04

Comments (none posted)

cups - multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):cups CVE #(s):CAN-2002-1366 CAN-2002-1367 CAN-2002-1368 CAN-2002-1369 CAN-2002-1371 CAN-2002-1372 CAN-2002-1383
Created:December 30, 2002 Updated:February 17, 2003
Description: Exploitation of multiple CUPS vulnerabilities allow local and remote attackers in the worst of the scenarios to gain root privileges. See the iDEFENSE advisory for more information.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-232-2 2003-02-20
SCO Group CSSA-2003-004.0 2003-01-20
Debian DSA-232-1 2003-01-20
Yellow Dog YDU-20030114-1 2002-01-14
Red Hat RHSA-2002:295-07 2003-01-09
Mandrake MDKSA-2003:001 2003-01-09
SuSE SuSE-SA:2003:002 2003-01-02
Gentoo 200212-13 2002-12-29

Comments (none posted)

CVS - exploitable double-free bug in the CVS server

Package(s):cvs CVE #(s):CAN-2003-0015
Created:January 20, 2003 Updated:April 7, 2003
Description: CVS is a version control system frequently used to manage source code repositories. During an audit of the CVS sources, Stefan Esser discovered an exploitable double-free bug in the CVS server.

On servers which are configured to allow anonymous read-only access, this bug could be used by anonymous users to gain write privileges. Users with CVS write privileges can then use the Update-prog and Checkin-prog features to execute arbitrary commands on the server.

All users of CVS are advised to upgrade to erratum packages which contain patches to correct the double-free bug.

See also this CERT advisory

Alerts:
Immunix IMNX-2003-7+-004-01 2003-04-02
SCO Group CSSA-2003-006.0 2003-01-31
Yellow Dog YDU-20030127-6 2003-01-27
Conectiva CLA-2003:561 2003-01-23
SuSE SuSE-SA:2003:0007 2003-01-22
Slackware sl-1043242333 2003-01-22
Conectiva CLA-2003:560 2003-01-21
Debian DSA-233-1 2003-01-21
Gentoo 200301-12 2003-01-21
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2003.004 2003-01-21
Mandrake MDKSA-2003:009 2003-01-20
Red Hat RHSA-2003:012-07 2003-01-20

Comments (none posted)

dhcp3 - ignored counter boundary

Package(s):dhcp3 CVE #(s):CAN-2003-0039
Created:January 28, 2003 Updated:April 4, 2003
Description: Florian Lohoff discovered a bug in the dhcrelay causing it to send a continuing packet storm towards the configured DHCP server(s) in case of a malicious BOOTP packet, such as sent from buggy Cisco switches.

When the dhcp-relay receives a BOOTP request it forwards the request to the DHCP server using the broadcast MAC address ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff which causes the network interface to reflect the packet back into the socket. To prevent loops the dhcrelay checks whether the relay-address is its own, in which case the packet would be dropped. In combination with a missing upper boundary for the hop counter an attacker can force the dhcp-relay to send a continuing packet storm towards the configured dhcp server(s).

This patch introduces a new commandline switch ``-c maxcount'' and people are advised to start the dhcp-relay with ``dhcrelay -c 10'' or a smaller number, which will only create that many packets.

The dhcrelay program from the ``dhcp'' package does not seem to be affected since DHCP packets are dropped if they were apparently relayed already.

Alerts:
Conectiva CLA-2003:616 2003-04-04
Red Hat RHSA-2003:034-01 2003-03-31
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2003.012 2003-02-19
Debian DSA-245-1 2003-01-28

Comments (none posted)

dvips: command execution vulnerability

Package(s):dvips CVE #(s):CAN-2002-0836
Created:October 16, 2002 Updated:June 10, 2003
Description: The dvips utility uses the system() function improperly when managing fonts. An attacker who can craft the right sort of print job can use this vulnerability to execute commands under the UID used by the print system.
Alerts:
Immunix IMNX-2003-7+-016-01 2003-06-09
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2002.015 2002-12-16
Debian DSA-207-1 2002-12-11
Conectiva CLA-2002:537 2002-10-29
Mandrake MDKSA-2002:071 2002-10-24
Mandrake MDKSA-2002:070 2002-10-23
Gentoo tetex-20021018 2002-10-18
Red Hat RHSA-2002:194-18 2002-10-08

Comments (none posted)

Filename disclosure vulnerability in fam

Package(s):fam CVE #(s):CAN-2002-0875
Created:August 19, 2002 Updated:January 5, 2005
Description: "fam" (file alteration monitor) watches files and directories for changes and lets interested applications know when something happens. This package has a flaw in its group handling that blocks some legitimate operations while, at the same time, exposing the names of files that should otherwise be invisible.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2005:005-01 2005-01-05
Debian DSA-154-1 2002-08-15

Comments (none posted)

fetchmail: buffer overflow

Package(s):fetchmail CVE #(s):CAN-2002-1365
Created:December 17, 2002 Updated:October 20, 2003
Description: Versions of fetchmail prior to 6.2.0 have (yet another) buffer overflow vulnerability which can be exploited remotely via a suitably crafted message. See this advisory for details.
Alerts:
Immunix IMNX-2003-7+-023-01 2003-10-17
Mandrake MDKSA-2003:011 2003-01-27
EnGarde ESA-20030127-002 2003-01-27
SCO Group CSSA-2003-001.0 2003-01-09
SuSE SuSE-SA:2003:001 2003-01-02
Debian DSA-216-1 2002-12-24
Red Hat RHSA-2002:293-09 2002-12-17
Conectiva CLA-2002:554 2002-12-16

Comments (3 posted)

GNU fileutils race condition

Package(s):fileutils ucdsnmp CVE #(s):CAN-2002-0435
Created:May 20, 2002 Updated:May 16, 2003
Description: A race condition in rm may cause the root user to delete the whole filesystem. The problem exists in the version of rm in fileutils 4.1 stable and 4.1.6 development version. A patch is available. (First LWN report: May 2).
Alerts:
Immunix IMNX-2003-7+-010-01 2003-05-16
Red Hat RHSA-2003:015-05 2003-02-12
Trustix 2002-0052 2002-06-06
SuSE SuSE-SA:2002:012 2002-04-08
Mandrake MDKSA-2002:031 2002-05-16
SCO Group CSSA-2002-018.1 2002-05-13

Comments (none posted)

Potential remote root exploit in glibc

Package(s):glibc CVE #(s):CAN-2002-0391
Created:August 14, 2002 Updated:June 29, 2003
Description: Felix von Leitner, discovered a potential division by zero bug in code derived from the SunRPC library which is used in glibc.This bug could be exploited to gain unauthorized root access to software linking to glibc.

Updating as soon as practical is a good idea.

Because SunRPC-derived XDR libraries are used by a variety of vendors in a variety of applications, this defect may lead to a number of differing security problems. Exploiting this vulnerability will lead to denial of service, execution of arbitrary code, or the disclosure of sensitive information.

CERT/CC Vulnerability Note VU#192995 Integer overflow in xdr_array() function when deserializing the XDR stream

Alerts:
Debian DSA-333-1 2003-06-27
Conectiva CLA-2002:535 2002-10-29
Trustix 2002-0070 2002-10-17
EnGarde ESA-20021003-021 2002-10-03
Gentoo glibc-20020927 2002-09-27
Gentoo dietlibc-20020927 2002-09-27
Debian DSA-149-2 2002-09-26
Mandrake MDKSA-2002:061 2002-09-23
Gentoo glibc-20020905 2002-09-05
SuSE SuSE-SA:2002:031 2002-08-30
Trustix 2002-0067 2002-08-13
Eridani ERISA-2002:036 2002-08-13
Red Hat RHSA-2002:166-07 2002-08-12
Debian DSA-149-1 2002-08-13

Comments (none posted)

glibc: DNS stub resolvers contain buffer overflow vulnerability

Package(s):glibc CVE #(s):CAN-2002-1146
Created:November 7, 2002 Updated:February 5, 2004
Description: DNS stub resolvers from multiple vendors contain a buffer overflow vulnerability. The impact of this vulnerability appears to be limited to denial of service. (See CERT Vulnerability Note VU#738331)

The BIND 4 and BIND 8.2.x stub resolver libraries, and other libraries such as glibc 2.2.5 and earlier, libc, and libresolv, uses the maximum buffer size instead of the actual size when processing a DNS response, which causes the stub resolvers to read past the actual boundary ("read buffer overflow"), allowing remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash).

Alerts:
Mandrake MDKSA-2004:009 2004-02-04
Red Hat RHSA-2002:197-09 2002-11-06
Red Hat RHSA-2002:197-06 2002-10-03

Comments (none posted)

hypermail - buffer overflows

Package(s):hypermail CVE #(s):CAN-2003-0057
Created:February 11, 2003 Updated:February 27, 2003
Description: Ulf Harnhammar discovered two problems in hypermail, a program to create HTML archives of mailing lists.

An attacker could craft a long filename for an attachment that would overflow two buffers when a certain option for interactive use was given, opening the possibility to inject arbitrary code. This code would then be executed under the user id hypermail runs as, mostly as a local user. Automatic and silent use of hypermail does not seem to be affected.

The CGI program mail, which is not installed by the Debian package, does a reverse look-up of the user's IP number and copies the resulting hostname into a fixed-size buffer. A specially crafted DNS reply could overflow this buffer, opening the program to an exploit.

Alerts:
SuSE SuSE-SA:2003:0012 2003-02-27
Debian DSA-248-1 2003-01-31

Comments (none posted)

IM: creates temporary files insecurely

Package(s):im CVE #(s):CAN-2002-1395
Created:December 3, 2002 Updated:March 6, 2003
Description: Tatsuya Kinoshita discovered that IM, which contains interface commands and Perl libraries for E-mail and NetNews, creates temporary files insecurely.
  1. The impwagent program creates a temporary directory in an insecure manner in /tmp using predictable directory names without checking the return code of mkdir, so it's possible to seize a permission of the temporary directory by local access as another user.

  2. The immknmz program creates a temporary file in an insecure manner in /tmp using a predictable filename, so an attacker with local access can easily create and overwrite files as another user.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2003:039-06 2003-03-06
Debian DSA-202-2 2002-12-06
Debian DSA-202-1 2002-12-03

Comments (none posted)

IMP - SQL injection vulnerability

Package(s):imp CVE #(s):CAN-2003-0025
Created:January 15, 2003 Updated:July 8, 2003
Description: The IMP IMAP server, versions 2.2.8 and prior, is vulnerable to SQL injection; see this advisory for details. Version 3.x is not vulnerable to this problem.
Alerts:
Conectiva CLA-2003:690 2003-07-08
SuSE SuSE-SA:2003:0008 2003-02-18
Debian DSA-229-2 2003-01-15

Comments (1 posted)

KDE - command parameter quoting problems

Package(s):kde CVE #(s):CAN-2002-1393
Created:December 23, 2002 Updated:February 21, 2003
Description: In some instances, KDE (versions 2 and 3) fails to properly quote parameters of instructions passed to a command shell for execution.

These parameters may incorporate data such as URLs, filenames and e-mail addresses, and this data may be provided remotely to a victim in an e-mail, a webpage or files on a network filesystem or other untrusted source.

By carefully crafting such data an attacker might be able to execute arbitary commands on a vulnerable sytem using the victim's account and privileges.

See this announcement for more details.

Alerts:
Conectiva CLA-2003:569 2003-02-20
Debian DSA-243-1 2003-01-24
Debian DSA-242-1 2003-01-24
Debian DSA-241-1 2003-01-24
Debian DSA-239-1 2003-01-23
Debian DSA-240-1 2003-01-23
Debian DSA-237-1 2003-01-22
Debian DSA-238-1 2003-01-23
Debian DSA-236-1 2003-01-22
Debian DSA-235-1 2003-01-22
Debian DSA-234-1 2003-01-22
Gentoo 200301-11 2003-01-18
Mandrake MDKSA-2003:004-1 2003-01-17
Mandrake MDKSA-2003:004 2003-01-13
Gentoo 200212-9 2002-12-22

Comments (none posted)

kdelibs: Vulnerabilities in KIO subsystem support

Package(s):kdelibs CVE #(s):CAN-2002-1281 CAN-2002-1282
Created:November 22, 2002 Updated:March 14, 2003
Description: Vulnerabilities were discovered in the KIO subsystem support for various network protocols. The implementation of the rlogin protocol affects all KDE versions from 2.1 up to 3.0.4, while the flawed implementation of the telnet protocol only affects KDE 2.x. They allow a carefully crafted URL in an HTML page, HTML email, or other KIO-enabled application to execute arbitrary commands as the victim with their privilege. The KDE team provided a patch for KDE3 which has been applied in these packages. No patch was provided for KDE2, however the KDE team recommends disabling both the rlogin and telnet KIO protocols. This can be accomplished by removing, as root, the following files:
/usr/share/services/telnet.protocol and
/usr/share/services/rlogin.protocol.
If either file also exists in a user's ~/.kde/share/services directory, they should likewise be removed. See also: http://www.kde.org/info/security/advisory-20021111-1.txt
Alerts:
SCO Group CSSA-2003-012.0 2003-03-14
Debian DSA-204-1 2002-12-05
Red Hat RHSA-2002:220-40 2002-12-04
Mandrake MDKSA-2002:079 2002-11-21

Comments (none posted)

kernel-utils: setuid vulnerability

Package(s):kernel-utils CVE #(s):CAN-2003-0019
Created:February 7, 2003 Updated:January 21, 2005
Description: The kernel-utils package contains several utilities that can be used to control the kernel or machine hardware. In Red Hat Linux 8.0 this package contains user mode linux (UML) utilities.

The uml_net utility in kernel-utils packages with Red Hat Linux 8.0 was incorrectly shipped setuid root. This could allow local users to control certain network interfaces, add and remove arp entries and routes, and put interfaces in and out of promiscuous mode.

All users of the kernel-utils package should update to these packages that contain a version of uml_net that is not setuid root.

Alternatively, as a work-around to this vulnerability issue the following command as root:

chmod -s /usr/bin/uml_net

Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2003:056-08 2003-02-07

Comments (none posted)

krb5 - vulnerability in Kerberos ftp client

Package(s):krb5 ftp netkit CVE #(s):CAN-2003-0041
Created:January 31, 2003 Updated:February 21, 2003
Description: Kerberos is a network authentication system.

A problem has been found in the Kerberos ftp client. When retrieving a file with a filename beginning with a pipe character, the ftp client will pass the filename to the command shell in a system() call. This could allow a malicious ftp server to write to files outside of the current directory or execute commands as the user running the ftp client.

The Kerberos ftp client runs as the default ftp client when the Kerberos package krb5-workstation is installed on a Red Hat Linux distribution.

Alerts:
Mandrake MDKSA-2003:021 2003-02-21
Red Hat RHSA-2003:020-10 2003-01-31

Comments (none posted)

libmcrypt: buffer overflows and memory exhaustion

Package(s):libmcrypt CVE #(s):CAN-2003-0031 CAN-2003-0032
Created:January 6, 2003 Updated:February 27, 2003
Description: libmcrypt versions prior to 2.5.5 contain a number of buffer overflow vulnerabilities that stem from improper or lacking input validation. By passing a longer than expected input to a number of functions (multiple functions are affected) the user can successful make libmcrypt crash.

Another vulnerability is due to the way libmcrypt loads algorithms via libtool. When the algorithms are loaded dynamically the each time the algorithm is loaded a small (few kilobytes) of memory are leaked. In a persistant enviroment (web server) this could lead to a memory exhaustion attack that will exhaust all avaliable memory by launching repeated requests at an application utilizing the mcrypt library.

Alerts:
SuSE SuSE-SA:2003:0010 2003-02-26
Conectiva CLA-2003:567 2003-02-05
Debian DSA-228-1 2003-01-14
Gentoo 200301-4 2003-01-05

Comments (none posted)

libpng, libpng3: buffer overflow

Package(s):libpng, libpng3 CVE #(s):CAN-2002-1363
Created:December 19, 2002 Updated:July 14, 2004
Description: Glenn Randers-Pehrson discovered a problem in connection with 16-bit samples from libpng, an interface for reading and writing PNG (Portable Network Graphics) format files. The starting offsets for the loops are calculated incorrectly which causes a buffer overrun beyond the beginning of the row buffer.
Alerts:
Gentoo 200407-06 2004-07-08
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2004.030 2004-07-06
Mandrake MDKSA-2004:063 2004-06-29
Whitebox WBSA-2004:249-01 2004-06-21
Fedora FEDORA-2004-176 2004-06-18
Fedora FEDORA-2004-174 2004-06-18
Fedora FEDORA-2004-175 2004-06-18
Fedora FEDORA-2004-173 2004-06-18
Red Hat RHSA-2004:249-01 2004-06-18
Conectiva CLA-2003:564 2003-01-23
Mandrake MDKSA-2003:008 2003-01-20
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2003.001 2003-01-15
Yellow Dog YDU-20030114-2 2002-01-14
SuSE SuSE-SA:2003:0004 2003-01-14
Red Hat RHSA-2003:006-06 2003-01-09
Debian DSA-213-1 2002-12-19

Comments (none posted)

lynx: CRLF injection vulnerability

Package(s):lynx CVE #(s):CAN-2002-1405
Created:November 19, 2002 Updated:September 30, 2003
Description: If lynx is given a url with some special characters on the command line, it will include faked headers in the HTTP query. This feature can be used to force scripts (that use Lynx for downloading files) to access the wrong site on a web server with multiple virtual hosts.

CAN-2002-1405

Alerts:
Conectiva CLA-2003:720 2003-08-11
Mandrake MDKSA-2003:023 2003-02-24
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2003.011 2003-02-18
Red Hat RHSA-2003:029-06 2003-02-12
Trustix 2002-0085 2002-12-19
Debian DSA-210-1 2002-12-13
SCO Group CSSA-2002-049.0 2002-11-18

Comments (none posted)

perl-MailTools: remote command execution

Package(s):MailTools CVE #(s):CAN-2002-1271
Created:November 5, 2002 Updated:September 19, 2003
Description: The SuSE Security Team reviewed critical Perl modules, including the Mail::Mailer package. This package contains a security hole which allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary commands in certain circumstances. This is due to the usage of mailx as default mailer which allows commands to be embedded in the mail body.

Note that mail processing programs which use this package can be affected by this vulnerability; in particular, SpamAssassin is vulnerable if you use the -r or -w flags.

Alerts:
Debian DSA-386-1 2003-09-18
Gentoo 200302-01 2003-02-02
Mandrake MDKSA-2002:076 2002-11-07
Gentoo 200211-001 2002-11-06
SuSE SuSE-SA:2002:041 2002-11-05

Comments (none posted)

micq: Denial of service

Package(s):micq CVE #(s):
Created:December 13, 2002 Updated:April 24, 2003
Description: Rüdiger Kuhlmann, upstream developer of mICQ, a text based ICQ client, discovered a problem in mICQ. Receiving certain ICQ message types that do not contain the required 0xFE seperator causes all versions to crash.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2003:118-01 2003-04-24
Debian DSA-211-1 2002-12-13

Comments (none posted)

mod_dav: Apache mod_dav module format string vulnerability

Package(s):mod_dav CVE #(s):
Created:February 17, 2003 Updated:February 19, 2003
Description: The Apache mod_dav module contains a format string vulnerability in the "ap_log_rerror()" function.
Alerts: (No alerts in the database for this vulnerability)

Comments (1 posted)

PHP Remote Compromise/DOS Vulnerability

Package(s):mod_php4 CVE #(s):
Created:July 22, 2002 Updated:February 18, 2003
Description: PHP 4.2.0 and 4.2.1 have an error in the handling of POST requests which can lead to the corruption of memory, and the usual bad consequences. According to this alert, the vulnerability can only be used for denial of service on x86 systems - there is no way to get it to run exploit code. SPARC/Solaris systems are apparently vulnerable to full remote compromise.

According to the CERT Advisory, almost every Linux distributor, it seems, ships older (and thus not vulnerable) versions of PHP.

Note that, sometimes, systems thought to be safe from remote compromise turn out to be vulnerable to a modified attack, so x86 users should not relax too much. The solution, for those systems with PHP 4.2.0 or 4.2.1 installed, is to upgrade to PHP 4.2.2.

For more information see the alert from the discover of the vulnerability, Stefan Esser of e-matters GmbH, or the security advisory from the php team.

CERT Advisory: CA-2002-21 Vulnerability in PHP

Alerts:
SuSE SuSE-SA:2003:0009 2003-02-18

Comments (1 posted)

mod_php - buffer overflow

Package(s):mod_php php CVE #(s):CAN-2002-1396
Created:January 13, 2003 Updated:February 20, 2003
Description: The wordwrap() function on user-supplied input may allow a specially-crafted input to overflow the allocated buffer and overwrite the heap. There are no known exploits, but an exploit is theoretically possible.

Read the full advisory at http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=bugtraq&m=104102689503192&w=2

Alerts:
Mandrake MDKSA-2003:019 2003-02-19
EnGarde ESA-20030219-003 2003-02-19
Red Hat RHSA-2003:017-06 2003-02-04
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2003.005 2003-01-22
Gentoo 200301-8 2003-01-13

Comments (none posted)

Mozilla: Privacy leak and other vulnerabilities

Package(s):mozilla CVE #(s):CAN-2002-1126 CAN-2002-1091
Created:November 1, 2002 Updated:February 13, 2003
Description: Mozilla 1.1 and earlier, and Mozilla-based browsers such as Netscape and Galeon, set the document referrer too quickly in certain situations when a new page is being loaded, which allows web pages to determine the next page that is being visited, including manually entered URLs.

Netscape 6.2.3 and earlier, and Mozilla 1.0.1, allow remote attackers to corrupt heap memory and execute arbitrary code via a GIF image with a zero width.

See also Mozilla's Recently fixed security issues page.

All users are encouraged to upgrade to this latest stable 1.0.x release of Mozilla.

Alerts:
Conectiva CLA-2003:568 2003-02-13
Mandrake MDKSA-2002:075 2002-10-31

Comments (none posted)

MySQL - double free vulnerability

Package(s):mysql CVE #(s):CAN-2003-0073
Created:January 29, 2003 Updated:February 21, 2003
Description: MySQL 3.23.55 fixes a double-free vulnerability which allows a hostile client to crash the server process. Logging into the server is necessary before this vulnerability can be exploited.
Alerts:
Trustix 2003-0003 2003-02-20
EnGarde ESA-20030220-004 2003-02-20
Mandrake MDKSA-2003:013 2003-02-03
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2003.008 2003-01-29

Comments (none posted)

MySQL: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):mysql CVE #(s):
Created:December 13, 2002 Updated:April 10, 2003
Description: The MySQL database server has several buffer overflow and integer bounds checking vulnerabilities which can lead to denial of service attacks, and, possibily, remote code execution. See this e-matters advisory for details. Version 3.23.54 fixes the problems.
Alerts:
Immunix IMNX-2003-7+-008-01 2003-04-08
EnGarde ESA-20030127-001 2003-01-27
Red Hat RHSA-2002:288-22 2003-01-15
SuSE SuSE-SA:2003:003 2003-01-02
Trustix 2002-0086 2002-12-19
Mandrake MDKSA-2002:087 2002-12-18
Debian DSA-212-1 2002-12-17
Conectiva CLA-2002:555 2002-12-17
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2002.013 2002-12-16
Gentoo 200212-2 2002-12-15
EnGarde ESA-20021213-033 2002-12-13

Comments (none posted)

net-snmp: denial of service vulnerability

Package(s):net-snmp CVE #(s):CAN-2002-1170
Created:December 17, 2002 Updated:November 7, 2003
Description: The SNMP daemon included in the Net-SNMP package versions 5.0.1 through 5.0.4 can be caused to crash if it is sent a specially crafted packet.
Alerts:
Conectiva CLA-2003:778 2003-11-07
Red Hat RHSA-2002:228-11 2002-12-17

Comments (none posted)

OpenLDAP2: remote command execution

Package(s):OpenLDAP2 CVE #(s):CAN-2002-1378 CAN-2002-1379
Created:December 6, 2002 Updated:February 21, 2003
Description: OpenLDAP is the Open Source implementation of the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) and is used in network environments for distributing certain information such as X.509 certificates or login information.

The SuSE Security Team reviewed critical parts of that package and found several buffer overflows and other bugs remote attackers could exploit to gain access on systems running vulnerable LDAP servers. In addition to these bugs, various local exploitable bugs within the OpenLDAP2 libraries (openldap2-devel package) have been fixed.

Since there is no workaround possible except shutting down the LDAP server, an update is strongly recommended.

Alerts:
Trustix 2003-0002 2003-02-20
Red Hat RHSA-2003:040-07 2003-02-05
Mandrake MDKSA-2003:006 2003-01-14
Debian DSA-227-1 2003-01-13
Gentoo 200212-12 2002-12-28
Conectiva CLA-2002:556 2002-12-19
SuSE SuSE-SA:2002:047 2002-12-06

Comments (1 posted)

PHP: vulnerability in mail function

Package(s):php CVE #(s):CAN-2002-0985 CAN-2002-0986
Created:November 13, 2002 Updated:September 30, 2003
Description: Two vulnerabilities exists in the mail() PHP function. The first one allows the execution of any program/script bypassing safe_mode restriction, the second one may give an open-relay script if the mail() function is not carefully used in PHP scripts. See this Bugtraq report for more details. Note that this is a different vulnerability than the previous PHP mail() problem, which affected versions through 4.1.0.

CAN-2002-0985
CAN-2002-0986

Alerts:
SCO Group CSSA-2003-008.0 2003-03-04
Gentoo 200211-005 2002-11-20
EnGarde ESA-20021122-031 2002-11-22
Conectiva CLA-2002:545 2002-11-13
Red Hat RHSA-2002:213-06 2002-11-11

Comments (none posted)

PostgreSQL - more buffer overflows

Package(s):postgresql CVE #(s):
Created:February 12, 2003 Updated:November 7, 2003
Description: A new set of buffer overflows has been discovered in PostgreSQL 7.2.2; they affect the circle_poly(), path_encode(), and path_addr() functions. Exploiting these overflows requires that the attacker first obtain a connection to the PostgreSQL server.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-397-1 2003-11-07
Immunix IMNX-2003-7+-005-01 2003-04-08
Trustix 2003-0004 2003-02-20
Mandrake MDKSA-2002:062-1 2003-02-11

Comments (1 posted)

Local arbitrary code execution vulnerability in Python

Package(s):python CVE #(s):CAN-2002-1119
Created:August 28, 2002 Updated:September 30, 2003
Description: Zack Weinberg discovered that os._execvpe from os.py uses a predictable name which could lead to execution of arbitrary code. According to the Debian advisory, the problem was present in Python versions 1.5, 2.1 and 2.2.

CAN-2002-1119

Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2002:202-33 2003-02-12
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2003.006 2003-01-23
Red Hat RHSA-2002:202-25 2003-01-21
Mandrake MDKSA-2002:082-1 2002-12-09
Mandrake MDKSA-2002:082 2002-11-25
SCO Group CSSA-2002-045.0 2002-11-14
Trustix 2002-0073 2002-10-17
Gentoo python-20021003 2002-10-03
Conectiva CLA-2002:527 2002-10-01
Debian DSA-159-2 2002-09-09
Debian DSA-159-1 2002-08-28

Comments (none posted)

Multiple-use vulnerability in Safe.pm

Package(s):Safe.pm CVE #(s):CAN-2002-1323
Created:October 9, 2002 Updated:February 20, 2004
Description: usePerl has a description of a vulnerability in the Safe.pm Perl module. It seems that if a Safe compartment is used more than once, it ceases to be safe. The problem is fixed in Safe 2.08.
Alerts:
SCO Group CSSA-2004-007.0 2004-02-20
Gentoo 200212-6 2002-12-20
Trustix 2002-0087 2002-12-19
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2002.014 2002-12-16
Debian DSA-208-1 2002-12-12

Comments (none posted)

slocate - buffer overflow

Package(s):slocate CVE #(s):CAN-2003-0056
Created:February 5, 2003 Updated:May 8, 2003
Description: version 2.6 (at least) of slocate contains a buffer overflow vulnerability which could lead to a local exploit; see this advisory for the details.
Alerts:
Conectiva CLA-2003:643 2003-05-08
SCO Group CSSA-2003-009.0 2003-03-06
Debian DSA-252-1 2003-02-21
Mandrake MDKSA-2003:015 2003-02-05
Gentoo 200302-02 2003-02-02

Comments (none posted)

File overwrite vulnerability in tar and unzip

Package(s):tar unzip CVE #(s):CAN-2001-1267 CAN-2001-1268 CAN-2001-1269 CAN-2002-0399
Created:October 1, 2002 Updated:April 9, 2006
Description: The tar utility does not properly filter file names containing "../", meaning that a hostile archive can, if unpacked by an unsuspecting user, overwrite any file that is writable by that user. GNU tar versions 1.13.19 and earlier are vulnerable; unzip through version 5.42 has the same vulnerability.
Alerts:
Fedora-Legacy FLSA:183571-1 2006-04-04
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0195-01 2006-02-21
Conectiva CLA-2002:538 2002-10-29
Mandrake MDKSA-2002:066 2002-10-10
Mandrake MDKSA-2002:065 2002-10-10
EnGarde ESA-20021003-022 2002-10-03
Gentoo unzip-20021001 2002-10-01
Gentoo tar-20021001 2002-10-01
Red Hat RHSA-2002:096-24 2002-09-18

Comments (1 posted)

Multiple vendor telnetd vulnerability

Package(s):telnet Telnet netkit-telnet-ssl kerberos telnetd netkit-telnet nkitb/nkitserv/telnetd krb5 CVE #(s):
Created:May 20, 2002 Updated:October 5, 2004
Description: This vulnerability, originally thought to be confined to BSD-derived systems, was first covered in the July 26th Security Summary. It is now known that Linux telnet daemons are vulnerable as well.
Alerts:
Gentoo 200410-03 2004-10-05
Yellow Dog YDU-20010810-2 2001-08-10
Yellow Dog YDU-20010810-1 2001-08-10
SuSE SuSE-SA:2001:029 2001-09-03
Slackware sl-997726350 2001-08-09
Red Hat RHSA-2001:100-02 2001-08-09
Red Hat RHSA-2001:099-09 2002-02-07
Red Hat RHSA-2001:099-06 2001-08-09
Progeny PROGENY-SA-2001-27 2001-08-14
Mandrake MDKSA-2001:093 2001-12-17
Mandrake MDKSA-2001:068 2001-08-13
HP HPSBTL0202-023 2002-02-12
Debian DSA-075-2 2001-08-14
Debian DSA-075-1 2001-08-14
Conectiva CLA-2001:413 2001-08-24
SCO Group CSSA-2001-030.0 2001-08-10

Comments (none posted)

traceroute-nanog: buffer overflow and root exploit

Package(s):traceroute-nanog/nkitb CVE #(s):
Created:November 12, 2002 Updated:February 27, 2003
Description: Traceroute is a tool that can be used to track packets in a TCP/IP network to determine it's route or to find out about not working routers. Traceroute-nanog requires root privilege to open a raw socket. It does not relinquish these privileges after doing so. This allows a malicious user to gain root access by exploiting a buffer overflow at a later point.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-254-1 2003-02-27
SuSE SuSE-SA:2002:043 2002-11-12

Comments (none posted)

typespeed: buffer overflow

Package(s):typespeed CVE #(s):
Created:January 1, 2003 Updated:June 17, 2003
Description: A problem has been discovered in the typespeed, a game that lets you measure your typematic speed. By overflowing a buffer a local attacker could execute arbitrary commands under the group id games.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-322-1 2003-06-16
Debian DSA-217-1 2002-12-27

Comments (none posted)

vim - modeline vulnerability

Package(s):vim CVE #(s):CAN-2002-1377
Created:January 16, 2003 Updated:February 10, 2004
Description: VIM allows a user to set the modeline differently for each edited text file by placing special comments in the files. Georgi Guninski found that these comments can be carefully crafted in order to call external programs. This could allow an attacker to create a text file such that when it is opened arbitrary commands are executed.
Alerts:
Conectiva CLA-2004:812 2004-02-10
Mandrake MDKSA-2003:012 2003-02-03