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Security

The Skype outage

By Jake Edge
August 22, 2007

A recent outage at Voice over IP (VoIP) provider Skype has caused quite a stir. For nearly two days, users of the VoIP software could not make calls, which set off a storm of blog postings wondering about the cause. Skype released an official explanation that did not ring true to some, leading to further speculation.

Sometime early Thursday, 16 August, Skype users could no longer authenticate and connect to the network. On Friday, right in the middle of the outage, a posting to Bugtraq purported to have information about the vulnerability that was being exploited to cause the outage. Skype has since categorically denied that any attack was responsible, but suspicions persist that the denial-of-service (DoS) vulnerability reported was actually responsible for the outage.

On Monday, Skype posted the following to their Heartbeat blog:

On Thursday, 16th August 2007, the Skype peer-to-peer network became unstable and suffered a critical disruption. The disruption was triggered by a massive restart of our users' computers across the globe within a very short timeframe as they re-booted after receiving a routine set of patches through Windows Update.

The high number of restarts affected Skype's network resources. This caused a flood of log-in requests, which, combined with the lack of peer-to-peer network resources, prompted a chain reaction that had a critical impact.

Though they never blamed Microsoft or the updates themselves, many in the media did it for them, which led Skype to clarify their explanation of the outage.

The new message provided more details, but still remained mute on one of the central puzzles: why did updates on Tuesday cause an outage starting on Thursday? While they acknowledge a bug in their software, there is also no mention of how the situation was resolved, presumably through an automatic update of their own. Overall, the explanations are fairly thin on technical detail which allows others to conjecture to try and fill in the holes.

There are many millions of Skype users – the software is available for Windows, OS X and x86 Linux – for the no-cost PC-to-PC calling as well as the other services that Skype does charge for. Hopefully the free users are not depending on the service, but there are companies which use Skype exclusively; an outage for two weekdays must have been rather painful. Certainly the landline and cellular phone companies have had their problems along the way, but those tend to be regional rather than worldwide.

All software even minimally more complicated than "hello world" has bugs, and those bugs will be triggered in surprising ways. Taking the Skype "perfect storm" explanation at face value, it is nearly amazing that millions of reboots could result in a network storm so severe that it would take two days to resolve. Somehow, in the interface between the Skype's centralized authentication and their P2P routing code, things went horribly awry. It does, however, give one pause about the power of the near-monoculture in desktop operating systems.

It is hard, but not completely impossible, to imagine a similar scenario for Linux boxes. To start with, it is uncommon that a software upgrade requires a reboot. Within the Linux user community, there is a wide range of kernel versions running, so even if there were a critical security fix that required "all" Linux kernels to be upgraded, it would not be very synchronized – the distributions tend to have different response times. This is a bit of a double-edged sword, of course, those varying response times could leave a hole that a worm or attacker could exploit. But, because Linux boxes are controlled by their owners rather than by their distribution provider, synchronized reboots are probably not a major cause for concern.

Beyond monocultural issues, there is the question of how a P2P system can be taken down by the lack of a centralized resource, in this case credentials from an authentication server. That provides a single point of failure to what is supposed to be a robust architecture, resistant to exactly those kinds of problems. There are also those who wonder if the outage was caused by an "upgrade" mandated by the US government so that they can more easily monitor Skype calls.

Skype is proprietary and closed source; there is no easy way to determine whether the problem has been fixed, or even whether the problem is being accurately described. If Skype decides, or is forced, to change their software to be more easily monitored, it will be hard to detect. It might look an awful lot like a multi-day outage that clears up somewhat mysteriously. Trusting closed source software for vital communications is not the best of plans, at least when there are alternatives.

Free software would not necessarily avoid these kinds of problems, but a completely decentralized network with multiple clients sharing a protocol, but little else, would certainly be more resistant to this kind of outage. More importantly, it would also be more transparent. Over time, projects like openwengo, Linphone, Asterisk and others can hopefully provide those benefits to a larger audience

Comments (31 posted)

Security news

Ubuntu Servers Hijacked, Used to Launch Attack (eWeek)

eWeek reports on a recent security breach of five Ubuntu-hosted community servers. "It was suggested during an IRC (Internet relay chat) meeting of the Ubuntu colocation team Aug. 14 that the source of the troubles might have been a Chinese IP address trying to log onto the servers by brute force "for a long time now it seems," said a participant. On Aug. 14, the community began to bring the machines back up in a safe state so that they could recover data from them. Unfortunately, according to Ubuntu Community Manager Jono Bacon, the servers were all found to be out of date, stuffed with Web software, and missing security patches—at least in the instances where it was easy to determine what version they're running. "An attacker could have gotten a shell through almost any of these sites," [Bacon] wrote in a posting, regarding a change to location server policy that resulted from the incident."

Comments (39 posted)

New vulnerabilities

kdebase: several vulnerabilities

Package(s):kdebase CVE #(s):CVE-2007-3820 CVE-2007-4224 CVE-2007-4225
Created:August 20, 2007 Updated:October 8, 2007
Description: konqueror/konq_combo.cc in Konqueror 3.5.7 allows remote attackers to spoof the data: URI scheme in the address bar via a long URI with trailing whitespace, which prevents the beginning of the URI from being displayed. (CVE-2007-3820)

KDE Konqueror 3.5.7 allows remote attackers to spoof the URL address bar by calling setInterval with a small interval and changing the window.location property. (CVE-2007-4224)

Visual truncation vulnerability in KDE Konqueror 3.5.7 allows remote attackers to spoof the URL address bar via an http URI with a large amount of whitespace in the user/password portion. (CVE-2007-4225)

Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0909-01 2007-10-08
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0905-01 2007-10-08
Fedora FEDORA-2007-716 2007-10-08
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:176 2007-09-06
rPath rPSA-2007-0177-1 2007-09-05
Ubuntu USN-502-1 2007-08-23
Fedora FEDORA-2007-1699 2007-08-20
Fedora FEDORA-2007-1700 2007-08-20

Comments (none posted)

kernel: several vulnerabilities

Package(s):kernel CVE #(s):CVE-2007-3851 CVE-2007-3848 CVE-2007-3105
Created:August 17, 2007 Updated:May 21, 2008
Description: The drm/i915 component in the Linux kernel before 2.6.22.2, when used with i965G and later chipsets, allows local users with access to an X11 session and Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) to write to arbitrary memory locations and gain privileges via a crafted batchbuffer. (CVE-2007-3851)

Linux kernel 2.4.35 and other versions allows local users to send arbitrary signals to a child process that is running at higher privileges by causing a setuid-root parent process to die, which delivers an attacker-controlled parent process death signal (PR_SET_PDEATHSIG). (CVE-2007-3848)

Stack-based buffer overflow in the random number generator (RNG) implementation in the Linux kernel before 2.6.22 might allow local root users to cause a denial of service or gain privileges by setting the default wakeup threshold to a value greater than the output pool size, which triggers writing random numbers to the stack by the pool transfer function involving "bound check ordering". NOTE: this issue might only cross privilege boundaries in environments that have granular assignment of privileges for root. (CVE-2007-3105)

Alerts:
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:105 2007-05-21
SuSE SUSE-SA:2008:017 2008-03-28
Debian DSA-1504 2008-02-22
Debian DSA-1503-2 2008-03-06
Debian DSA-1503 2008-02-22
SuSE SUSE-SA:2008:006 2008-02-07
Red Hat RHSA-2007:1049-01 2007-12-03
SuSE SUSE-SA:2007:053 2007-10-12
Debian DSA-1356-1 2007-08-15
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:216 2007-11-13
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0939-01 2007-11-01
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0940-01 2007-10-22
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0705-01 2007-09-13
SuSE SUSE-SA:2007:051 2007-09-06
Fedora FEDORA-2007-679 2007-09-04
Ubuntu USN-510-1 2007-08-31
Debian DSA-1363-1 2007-08-31
Ubuntu USN-508-1 2007-08-31
Ubuntu USN-509-1 2007-08-31
Fedora FEDORA-2007-1785 2007-08-23
rPath rPSA-2007-0164-1 2007-08-16

Comments (1 posted)

nvidia-drivers: insecure file permissions

Package(s):nvidia-drivers CVE #(s):CVE-2007-3532
Created:August 20, 2007 Updated:August 22, 2007
Description: Gregory Shikhman discovered that the default Gentoo setup of NVIDIA drivers creates the /dev/nvidia* with insecure file permissions.
Alerts:
Gentoo 200708-14 2007-08-19

Comments (none posted)

rsync: off-by-one errors

Package(s):rsync CVE #(s):CVE-2007-4091
Created:August 20, 2007 Updated:December 3, 2007
Description: Multiple off-by-one errors in the sender.c in rsync 2.6.9 might allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via directory names that are not properly handled when calling the f_name function.
Alerts:
Slackware SSA:2007-335-01 2007-12-03
Gentoo 200709-13 2007-09-20
Debian DSA-1360 2007-08-28
Foresight FLEA-2007-0047-1 2007-08-23
rPath rPSA-2007-0168-1 2007-08-22
Ubuntu USN-500-1 2007-08-20
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:166 2007-08-18

Comments (1 posted)

sysstat: insecure temporary files

Package(s):sysstat CVE #(s):CVE-2007-3852
Created:August 20, 2007 Updated:August 28, 2007
Description: The init script (sysstat.in) in sysstat 5.1.2 up to 7.1.6 creates /tmp/sysstat.run insecurely, which allows local users to execute arbitrary code.
Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2007-675 2007-08-27
Fedora FEDORA-2007-1697 2007-08-20

Comments (1 posted)

tor: compromised anonymity

Package(s):tor CVE #(s):CVE-2007-3165 CVE-2007-4174
Created:August 20, 2007 Updated:August 22, 2007
Description: Tor before 0.1.2.14 can construct circuits in which an entry guard is in the same family as the exit node, which might compromise the anonymity of traffic sources and destinations by exposing traffic to inappropriate remote observers. (CVE-2007-3165)

An unspecified vulnerability in Tor before 0.1.2.16, when ControlPort is enabled, might allow remote attackers to modify the torrc configuration file, compromise anonymity, and have other unspecified impact, related to improper handling of multiple ControlPort authentication attempts. (CVE-2007-4174)

Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2007-1674 2007-08-19

Comments (1 posted)

Updated vulnerabilities

apache2: information disclosure

Package(s):apache CVE #(s):CVE-2007-1862
Created:June 20, 2007 Updated:February 18, 2008
Description: From the Mandriva advisory: "The recall_headers function in mod_mem_cache in Apache 2.2.4 does not properly copy all levels of header data, which can cause Apache to return HTTP headers containing previously-used data, which could be used to obtain potentially sensitive information by unauthorized users."
Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1711 2008-02-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-0704 2007-06-26
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:127 2007-06-19

Comments (2 posted)

apache: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):apache CVE #(s):CVE-2007-3304 CVE-2006-5752
Created:June 27, 2007 Updated:February 18, 2008
Description: The Apache HTTP Server did not verify that a process was an Apache child process before sending it signals. A local attacker who has the ability to run scripts on the Apache HTTP Server could manipulate the scoreboard and cause arbitrary processes to be terminated, which could lead to a denial of service. (CVE-2007-3304)

A flaw was found in the Apache HTTP Server mod_status module. Sites with the server-status page publicly accessible and ExtendedStatus enabled were vulnerable to a cross-site scripting attack. On Red Hat Enterprise Linux the server-status page is not enabled by default and it is best practice to not make this publicly available. (CVE-2006-5752)

Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1711 2008-02-15
SuSE SUSE-SA:2007:061 2007-11-19
Fedora FEDORA-2007-2214 2007-09-18
rPath rPSA-2007-0182-1 2007-09-14
Ubuntu USN-499-1 2007-08-16
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0662-01 2007-07-13
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0557-01 2007-07-13
Fedora FEDORA-2007-615 2007-07-12
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:142 2007-07-04
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:141 2007-07-04
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:140 2007-07-04
Fedora FEDORA-2007-617 2007-07-02
rPath rPSA-2007-0136-1 2007-06-27
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0556-01 2007-06-26
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0534-01 2007-06-26
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0533-01 2007-06-27
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0532-01 2007-06-26

Comments (1 posted)

apache: cross-site scripting

Package(s):apache CVE #(s):CVE-2006-3918
Created:August 9, 2006 Updated:April 4, 2008
Description: From the Red Hat advisory: "A bug was found in Apache where an invalid Expect header sent to the server was returned to the user in an unescaped error message. This could allow an attacker to perform a cross-site scripting attack if a victim was tricked into connecting to a site and sending a carefully crafted Expect header."
Alerts:
SuSE SUSE-SA:2008:021 2008-04-04
Ubuntu USN-575-1 2008-02-04
SuSE SUSE-SA:2006:051 2006-09-08
Debian DSA-1167-1 2005-09-04
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0619-01 2006-08-10
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0618-01 2006-08-08

Comments (none posted)

Asterisk: two SIP denial of service vulnerabilities

Package(s):Asterisk CVE #(s):CVE-2007-1561 CVE-2007-1594
Created:April 3, 2007 Updated:August 27, 2007
Description: The Madynes research team at INRIA has discovered that Asterisk contains a null pointer dereferencing error in the SIP channel when handling INVITE messages. Furthermore qwerty1979 discovered that Asterisk 1.2.x fails to properly handle SIP responses with return code 0. A remote attacker could cause an Asterisk server listening for SIP messages to crash by sending a specially crafted SIP message or answering with a 0 return code.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-1358-1 2007-08-26
SuSE SUSE-SA:2007:034 2007-06-06
Gentoo 200704-01 2007-04-02

Comments (none posted)

avahi: denial of service

Package(s):avahi CVE #(s):CVE-2007-3372
Created:June 28, 2007 Updated:September 18, 2007
Description: Avahi is vulnerable to a local denial of service that can be caused by making an erroneous call to the assert() function.
Alerts:
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:185 2007-09-17
Foresight FLEA-2007-0030-1 2007-06-28

Comments (none posted)

bind: DNS cache poisoning

Package(s):bind CVE #(s):CVE-2007-2926
Created:July 24, 2007 Updated:August 20, 2007
Description: A flaw was found in the way BIND generates outbound DNS query ids. If an attacker is able to acquire a finite set of query IDs, it becomes possible to accurately predict future query IDs. Future query ID prediction may allow an attacker to conduct a DNS cache poisoning attack, which can result in the DNS server returning incorrect client query data.
Alerts:
Gentoo 200708-13 2007-08-18
SuSE SUSE-SA:2007:047 2007-08-01
Trustix TSLSA-2007-0023 2007-07-28
Slackware SSA:2007-207-01 2007-07-27
rPath rPSA-2007-0149-1 2007-07-27
Fedora FEDORA-2007-647 2007-07-26
Debian DSA-1341-2 2007-07-25
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:149 2007-12-31
Debian DSA-1341-1 2007-07-25
Ubuntu USN-491-1 2007-07-25
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2007.022 2007-07-25
Fedora FEDORA-2007-1247 2007-07-24
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0740-01 2007-07-24

Comments (none posted)

bochs: buffer overflow

Package(s):bochs CVE #(s):CVE-2007-2893
Created:July 20, 2007 Updated:November 19, 2007
Description: A heap-based buffer overflow in the bx_ne2k_c::rx_frame function in iodev/ne2k.cc in the emulated NE2000 device in Bochs 2.3 allows local users of the guest operating system to write to arbitrary memory locations and gain privileges on the host operating system via vectors that cause TXCNT register values to exceed the device memory size, aka "RX Frame heap overflow."
Alerts:
Gentoo 200711-21 2007-11-17
Fedora FEDORA-2007-1778 2007-08-23
Debian DSA-1351-1 2007-08-07
Fedora FEDORA-2007-1153 2007-07-19

Comments (none posted)

bugzilla: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):bugzilla CVE #(s):CVE-2006-5453 CVE-2006-5454 CVE-2006-5455
Created:November 10, 2006 Updated:August 28, 2007
Description: Bugzilla has the following vulnerabilities:

Input data passed to various fields is not properly sanitized before being passed back to users.

Users can gain unauthorized access to read attachment descriptions while using diff mode.

HTTP GET and HTTP POST requests can be used to perform unauthorized actions due to improper verification.

Input that is passed to showdependencygraph.cgi is not properly sanitized before being returned to users.

Alerts:
Debian DSA-1208-1 2006-11-11
Gentoo 200611-04 2006-11-09

Comments (none posted)

centericq: buffer overflows

Package(s):centericq CVE #(s):CVE-2007-3713
Created:July 20, 2007 Updated:December 17, 2007
Description: Multiple buffer overflows in Konst CenterICQ 4.9.11 through 4.21 allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via unspecified vectors. NOTE: the provenance of this information is unknown; the details are obtained solely from third party information. NOTE: this might overlap CVE-2007-0160.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-1433-1 2007-12-16
Debian-Testing DTSA-55-1 2007-09-03
Fedora FEDORA-2007-1160 2007-07-19

Comments (none posted)

clamav: denial of service

Package(s):clamav CVE #(s):CVE-2007-3725
Created:July 24, 2007 Updated:February 27, 2008
Description: A NULL pointer dereference has been discovered in the RAR VM of Clam Antivirus (ClamAV) which allows user-assisted remote attackers to cause a denial of service via a specially crafted RAR archives.
Alerts:
SuSE SUSE-SR:2007:015 2007-08-03
Gentoo 200708-04 2007-08-09
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:150 2007-07-25
Debian DSA-1340-1 2007-07-24

Comments (none posted)

cups: denial of service

Package(s):cups CVE #(s):CVE-2007-0720
Created:March 26, 2007 Updated:February 7, 2008
Description: Previous versions of the cups package could be forced to hang via a client "partially negotiating" an ssl connection. In this state, cups would not allow other connections to be made, a denial of service.
Alerts:
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:036 2007-02-06
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:086 2007-04-16
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0123-01 2007-04-16
Gentoo 200703-28 2007-03-31
Foresight FLEA-2007-0003-1 2007-03-25

Comments (none posted)

gpdf: integer overflow

Package(s):cups poppler xpdf CVE #(s):CVE-2007-3387
Created:July 31, 2007 Updated:November 28, 2007
Description: The gpdf library contains an integer overflow which can be exploited via a malicious PDF file. This code finds its way into multiple packages, including xpdf, kpdf, poppler, cups, and more.
Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2007-3390 2007-11-20
Fedora FEDORA-2007-3308 2007-11-20
Gentoo 200710-20 2007-10-18
Gentoo 200710-08 2007-10-09
Gentoo 200709-12 2007-09-19
Fedora FEDORA-2007-685 2007-08-30
Debian-Testing DTSA-54-1 2007-08-22
Fedora FEDORA-2007-669 2007-08-13
Fedora FEDORA-2007-644 2007-08-13
Debian DSA-1357-1 2007-08-19
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:162 2007-08-14
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:165 2007-08-15
Foresight FLEA-2007-0046-1 2007-08-14
Fedora FEDORA-2007-1614 2007-08-15
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:164 2007-08-14
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:163 2007-08-14
Foresight FLEA-2007-0045-1 2007-08-14
Foresight FLEA-2007-0044-1 2007-08-14
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:158 2007-08-13
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:160 2007-08-13
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:161 2007-08-13
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:159 2007-08-13
Fedora FEDORA-2007-1594 2007-08-13
Debian DSA-1355-1 2007-08-13
Slackware SSA:2007-222-05 2007-08-13
Slackware SSA:2007-222-02 2007-08-13
Fedora FEDORA-2007-1547 2007-08-10
Fedora FEDORA-2007-1541 2007-08-10
Debian DSA-1354-1 2007-08-13
rPath rPSA-2007-0154-1 2007-08-10
SuSE SUSE-SR:2007:016 2007-08-10
Ubuntu USN-496-2 2007-08-07
Debian DSA-1352-1 2007-08-07
Debian DSA-1350-1 2007-08-06
Debian DSA-1349-1 2007-08-05
Debian DSA-1348-1 2007-08-04
Debian DSA-1347-1 2007-08-04
SuSE SUSE-SR:2007:015 2007-08-03
Ubuntu USN-496-1 2007-08-03
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0731-01 2007-08-01
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0735-01 2007-07-30
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0732-01 2007-07-30
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0729-01 2007-07-30
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0730-01 2007-07-30
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0720-01 2007-07-30

Comments (1 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)

dovecot: privilege escalation

Package(s):dovecot CVE #(s):CVE-2007-4211
Created:August 15, 2007 Updated:May 21, 2008
Description: From the rPath advisory: "Previous versions of the dovecot package are vulnerable to a minor privilege escalation attack in which an authenticated user may exploit an ACL plugin weakness to save message flags without having proper permissions."
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0297-02 2008-05-21
Fedora FEDORA-2007-664 2007-08-20
rPath rPSA-2007-0161-1 2007-08-14

Comments (none posted)

dovecot: directory traversal

Package(s):dovecot CVE #(s):CVE-2007-2231
Created:May 8, 2007 Updated:May 21, 2008
Description: Directory traversal vulnerability in index/mbox/mbox-storage.c in Dovecot before 1.0.rc29, when using the zlib plugin, allows remote attackers to read arbitrary gzipped (.gz) mailboxes (mbox files) via a .. (dot dot) sequence in the mailbox name.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0297-02 2008-05-21
Debian DSA-1359-1 2007-08-28
Ubuntu USN-487-1 2007-07-17
Fedora FEDORA-2007-493 2007-05-07

Comments (none posted)

emacs21: denial of service

Package(s):emacs21 CVE #(s):CVE-2007-2833
Created:June 21, 2007 Updated:August 29, 2007
Description: The emacs21 editor has a denial of service vulnerability. emacs21 can be made to crash by viewing "certain types of images".
Alerts:
Ubuntu USN-504-1 2007-08-28
rPath rPSA-2007-0133-1 2007-06-25
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:133 2007-06-21
Debian DSA 1316-1 2007-06-21

Comments (none posted)

evolution: format string error

Package(s):evolution CVE #(s):CVE-2007-1002
Created:March 27, 2007 Updated:February 27, 2008
Description: A format string error in the "write_html()" function in calendar/gui/ e-cal-component-memo-preview.c when displaying a memo's categories can potentially be exploited to execute arbitrary code via a specially crafted shared memo containing format specifiers.
Alerts:
SuSE SUSE-SR:2007:015 2007-08-03
Gentoo 200706-02 2007-06-06
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0158-01 2007-05-03
Foresight FLEA-2007-0010-1 2007-04-05
Fedora FEDORA-2007-404 2007-04-04
Fedora FEDORA-2007-393 2007-04-04
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:070 2007-03-27

Comments (1 posted)

evolution-data-server: malicious server arbitrary code execution

Package(s):evolution-data-server CVE #(s):CVE-2007-3257
Created:June 18, 2007 Updated:November 7, 2007
Description: From the GNOME bugzilla: "The "SEQUENCE" value in the GData of the IMAP code (camel-imap-folder.c) is converted from a string using strtol. This allows for negative values. The imap_rescan uses this value as an int. It checks for !seq and seq>summary.length. It doesn't check for seq < 0. Although seq is used as the index of an array."
Alerts:
Gentoo 200711-04 2007-11-06
Gentoo 200707-03 2007-07-02
SuSE SUSE-SA:2007:042 2007-07-05
Debian DSA-1325-1 2007-06-29
Fedora FEDORA-2007-594 2007-06-27
Fedora FEDORA-2007-595 2007-06-27
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:136 2007-06-26
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0510-01 2007-06-25
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0509-01 2007-06-25
Debian DSA-1321-1 2007-06-23
Ubuntu USN-475-1 2007-06-21
Fedora FEDORA-2007-0464 2007-06-16

Comments (1 posted)

file: integer overflow

Package(s):file CVE #(s):CVE-2007-2799
Created:June 1, 2007 Updated:October 19, 2007
Description: Colin Percival from FreeBSD reported that the previous fix for the file_printf() buffer overflow introduced a new integer overflow. A remote attacker could entice a user to run the file program on an overly large file (more than 1Gb) that would trigger an integer overflow on 32-bit systems, possibly leading to the execution of arbitrary code with the rights of the user running file.
Alerts:
Gentoo 200710-19 2007-10-18
Debian DSA-1343-2 2007-09-25
Debian DSA-1343-1 2007-07-31
SuSE SUSE-SA:2007:040 2007-07-04
Fedora FEDORA-2007-0836 2007-07-03
Fedora FEDORA-2007-538 2007-06-11
Fedora FEDORA-2007-541 2007-06-11
Ubuntu USN-439-2 2007-06-11
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:114 2007-06-05
Gentoo 200705-25 2007-05-31

Comments (3 posted)

firebird: buffer overflow

Package(s):firebird CVE #(s):CVE-2007-3181
Created:July 2, 2007 Updated:March 27, 2008
Description: The Firebird DBMS has a buffer overflow vulnerability involving the processing of connect requests with an overly large p_cnct_count value. Remote attackers can send a specially crafted request to the server in order to potentially execute arbitrary code with the permissions of the Firebird user.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-1529-1 2008-03-24
Gentoo 200707-01 2007-07-01

Comments (none posted)

firefox: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):firefox CVE #(s):CVE-2007-3844 CVE-2007-3845
Created:August 1, 2007 Updated:February 20, 2008
Description:

A flaw was discovered in handling of "about:blank" windows used by addons. A malicious web site could exploit this to modify the contents, or steal confidential data (such as passwords), of other web pages. (CVE-2007-3844)

Jesper Johansson discovered that spaces and double-quotes were not correctly handled when launching external programs. In rare configurations, after tricking a user into opening a malicious web page, an attacker could execute helpers with arbitrary arguments with the user's privileges. (CVE-2007-3845)

Alerts:
Mandriva MDVSA-2007:047 2007-02-19
Fedora FEDORA-2007-3414 2007-11-16
Fedora FEDORA-2007-3431 2007-11-16
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0981-01 2007-10-19
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0980-01 2007-10-19
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0979-01 2007-10-19
Debian DSA-1391-1 2007-10-19
Gentoo 200708-09 2007-08-14
rPath rPSA-2007-0157-1 2007-08-10
Slackware SSA:2007-215-01 2007-08-06
Debian DSA-1346-1 2007-08-04
Debian DSA-1345-1 2007-08-04
Debian DSA-1344-1 2007-08-03
Foresight FLEA-2007-0040-1 2007-08-03
Slackware SSA:2007-213-01 2007-08-02
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:152 2007-08-01
Foresight FLEA-2007-0039-1 2007-08-01
Ubuntu USN-493-1 2007-07-31

Comments (none posted)

firefox: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):firefox mozilla seamonkey thunderbird CVE #(s):CVE-2007-1362 CVE-2007-2867 CVE-2007-2868 CVE-2007-2869 CVE-2007-2870 CVE-2007-2871
Created:June 4, 2007 Updated:August 29, 2007
Description: Various flaws were discovered in the layout and JavaScript engines. By tricking a user into opening a malicious web page, an attacker could execute arbitrary code with the user's privileges. (CVE-2007-2867, CVE-2007-2868)

A flaw was discovered in the form autocomplete feature. By tricking a user into opening a malicious web page, an attacker could cause a persistent denial of service. (CVE-2007-2869)

Nicolas Derouet discovered flaws in cookie handling. By tricking a user into opening a malicious web page, an attacker could force the browser to consume large quantities of disk or memory while processing long cookie paths. (CVE-2007-1362)

A flaw was discovered in the same-origin policy handling of the addEventListener JavaScript method. A malicious web site could exploit this to modify the contents, or steal confidential data (such as passwords), of other web pages. (CVE-2007-2870) Chris Thomas discovered a flaw in XUL popups. A malicious web site could exploit this to spoof or obscure portions of the browser UI, such as the location bar. (CVE-2007-2871)

Alerts:
Ubuntu USN-469-2 2007-08-29
SuSE SUSE-SA:2007:036 2007-06-27
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:131 2007-06-20
Gentoo 200706-06 2007-06-19
Foresight FLEA-2007-0027-1 2007-06-20
Fedora FEDORA-2007-0544 2007-06-18
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:126-1 2007-06-16
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:126 2007-06-15
Slackware SSA:2007-165-01 2007-06-15
Debian DSA-1308-1 2007-06-14
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:120 2007-06-12
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:119 2007-06-12
Debian DSA-1305-1 2007-06-13
Debian DSA-1306-1 2007-06-12
Debian DSA-1300-1 2007-06-07
Ubuntu USN-469-1 2007-06-05
Slackware SSA:2007-152-02 2007-06-04
Ubuntu USN-468-1 2007-06-01

Comments (3 posted)

firefox, thunderbird, seamonkey: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):firefox, thunderbird, seamonkey CVE #(s):CVE-2007-3738 CVE-2007-3656 CVE-2007-3670 CVE-2007-3285 CVE-2007-3737 CVE-2007-3089 CVE-2007-3736 CVE-2007-3734 CVE-2007-3735
Created:July 18, 2007 Updated:May 12, 2008
Description: shutdown and moz_bug_r_a4 reported two separate ways to modify an XPCNativeWrapper such that subsequent access by the browser would result in executing user-supplied code. (CVE-2007-3738)

Michal Zalewski reported that it was possible to bypass the same-origin checks and read from cached (wyciwyg) documents It is possible to access wyciwyg:// documents without proper same domain policy checks through the use of HTTP 302 redirects. This enables the attacker to steal sensitive data displayed on dynamically generated pages; perform cache poisoning; and execute own code or display own content with URL bar and SSL certificate data of the attacked page (URL spoofing++). (CVE-2007-3656)

Internet Explorer calls registered URL protocols without escaping quotes and may be used to pass unexpected and potentially dangerous data to the application that registers that URL Protocol. (CVE-2007-3670)

Ronald van den Heetkamp reported that a filename URL containing %00 (encoded null) can cause Firefox to interpret the file extension differently than the underlying Windows operating system potentially leading to unsafe actions such as running a program. This is only accessible locally. (CVE-2007-3285)

An attacker can use an element outside of a document to call an event handler allowing content to run arbitrary code with chrome privileges. (CVE-2007-3737)

Ronen Zilberman and Michal Zalewski both reported that it was possible to exploit a timing issue to inject content into about:blank frames in a page. When opening a window from a script, it is possible to spoof the content of the newly opened window's frames within a short time frame, while the window is loading. (CVE-2007-3089)

Mozilla contributor moz_bug_r_a4 demonstrated that the methods addEventListener and setTimeout could be used to inject script into another site in violation of the browser's same-origin policy. This could be used to access or modify private or valuable information from that other site. (CVE-2007-3736)

As part of the Firefox 2.0.0.5 update releases Mozilla developers fixed many bugs to improve the stability of the product. Some of these crashes that showed evidence of memory corruption under certain circumstances and we presume that with enough effort at least some of these could be exploited to run arbitrary code. Note: Thunderbird shares the browser engine with Firefox and could be vulnerable if JavaScript were to be enabled in mail. This is not the default setting and we strongly discourage users from running JavaScript in mail. Without further investigation we cannot rule out the possibility that for some of these an attacker might be able to prepare memory for exploitation through some means other than JavaScript, such as large images. (CVE-2007-3734, CVE-2007-3735)

Alerts:
Debian DSA-1574-1 2008-05-12
Debian DSA-1534-2 2008-04-24
Debian DSA-1535-1 2008-03-30
Debian DSA-1534-1 2008-03-28
Debian DSA-1532-1 2008-03-27
Mandriva MDVSA-2007:047 2007-02-19
Ubuntu USN-503-1 2007-08-24
Slackware SSA:2007-222-04 2007-08-13
SuSE SUSE-SA:2007:049 2007-08-02
Slackware SSA:2007-205-02 2007-07-25
Slackware SSA:2007-205-01 2007-07-25
Foresight FLEA-2007-0033-1 2007-07-24
Debian DSA-1339-1 2007-07-23
Debian DSA-1338-1 2007-07-23
Fedora FEDORA-2007-1181 2007-07-20
Fedora FEDORA-2007-1180 2007-07-20
Debian DSA-1337-1 2007-07-22
Fedora FEDORA-2007-642 2007-07-20
Fedora FEDORA-2007-641 2007-07-20
rPath rPSA-2007-0148-1 2007-07-20
Ubuntu USN-490-1 2007-07-19
Slackware SSA:2007-200-01 2007-07-20
Fedora FEDORA-2007-1159 2007-07-19
Fedora FEDORA-2007-1157 2007-07-19
Fedora FEDORA-2007-1155 2007-07-19
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0724-01 2007-07-18
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0723-01 2007-07-18
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0722-01 2007-07-18
Fedora FEDORA-2007-1143 2007-07-18
Fedora FEDORA-2007-1144 2007-07-18
Fedora FEDORA-2007-1142 2007-07-18
Fedora FEDORA-2007-1138 2007-07-18

Comments (none posted)

flac123: arbitrary code execution

Package(s):flac123 CVE #(s):CVE-2007-3507
Created:July 13, 2007 Updated:October 22, 2007
Description: A stack-based buffer overflow in the local__vcentry_parse_value function in vorbiscomment.c in flac123 (aka flac-tools or flac) before 0.0.10 allows user-assisted remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a large comment value_length.
Alerts:
Gentoo 200709-06 2007-09-14
Fedora FEDORA-2007-1045 2007-07-12

Comments (none posted)

freetype: integer overflows

Package(s):freetype CVE #(s):CVE-2006-0747 CVE-2006-1861 CVE-2006-2493 CVE-2006-2661 CVE-2006-3467
Created:June 8, 2006 Updated:October 10, 2007
Description: The FreeType library has several integer overflow vulnerabilities. If a user can be tricked into installing a specially crafted font file, arbitrary code can be executed with the privilege of the user.
Alerts:
Gentoo 200710-09 2007-10-09
Debian DSA-1178-1 2006-09-16
Ubuntu USN-341-1 2006-09-06
Gentoo 200609-04 2006-09-06
rPath rPSA-2006-0157-1 2006-08-25
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:148 2006-08-24
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0635-01 2006-08-21
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0634-01 2006-08-21
Fedora FEDORA-2006-912 2006-08-14
SuSE SUSE-SA:2006:045 2006-08-01
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2006.017 2006-07-28
Ubuntu USN-324-1 2006-07-27
Slackware SSA:2006-207-02 2006-07-27
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:129 2006-07-20
Gentoo 200607-02 2006-07-09
SuSE SUSE-SA:2006:037 2006-06-27
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:099-1 2006-06-13
Mandriva MDKSA-2006:099 2006-06-12
rPath rPSA-2006-0100-1 2006-06-12
Debian DSA-1095-1 2006-06-10
Ubuntu USN-291-1 2006-06-08

Comments (none posted)

gcc: file overwrite vulnerability

Package(s):gcc CVE #(s):CVE-2006-3619
Created:September 6, 2006 Updated:March 14, 2008
Description: The fastjar utility found in the GNU compiler collection does not perform adequate file path checking, allowing the creation or overwriting of files outside of the current directory tree.
Alerts:
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:066 2007-03-13
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0473-01 2007-06-11
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0220-02 2007-05-01
Debian DSA-1170-1 2006-09-06

Comments (none posted)

gd: buffer overflow

Package(s):gd CVE #(s):CVE-2007-0455
Created:February 7, 2007 Updated:February 28, 2008
Description: The gd graphics library contains a buffer overflow which could enable a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code. Note that various other packages include code from gd and could also be vulnerable.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0146-01 2008-02-28
Ubuntu USN-473-1 2007-06-11
OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2007.016 2007-05-18
Trustix TSLSA-2007-0007 2007-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2007-150 2007-02-12
Fedora FEDORA-2007-149 2007-02-12
rPath rPSA-2007-0028-1 2007-02-08
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:038 2006-02-06
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:036 2006-02-06
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:035 2006-02-06

Comments (2 posted)

gd: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):gd CVE #(s):CVE-2007-3472 CVE-2007-3473 CVE-2007-3474 CVE-2007-3475 CVE-2007-3476 CVE-2007-3477 CVE-2007-3478
Created:August 6, 2007 Updated:July 22, 2008
Description: Integer overflow in gdImageCreateTrueColor function in the GD Graphics Library (libgd) before 2.0.35 allows user-assisted remote attackers to have unspecified remote attack vectors and impact. (CVE-2007-3472)

The gdImageCreateXbm function in the GD Graphics Library (libgd) before 2.0.35 allows user-assisted remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via unspecified vectors involving a gdImageCreate failure. (CVE-2007-3473)

Multiple unspecified vulnerabilities in the GIF reader in the GD Graphics Library (libgd) before 2.0.35 allow user-assisted remote attackers to have unspecified attack vectors and impact. (CVE-2007-3474)

The GD Graphics Library (libgd) before 2.0.35 allows user-assisted remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via a GIF image that has no global color map. (CVE-2007-3475)

Array index error in gd_gif_in.c in the GD Graphics Library (libgd) before 2.0.35 allows user-assisted remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash and heap corruption) via large color index values in crafted image data, which results in a segmentation fault. (CVE-2007-3476)

The (a) imagearc and (b) imagefilledarc functions in GD Graphics Library (libgd) before 2.0.35 allows attackers to cause a denial of service (CPU consumption) via a large (1) start or (2) end angle degree value. (CVE-2007-3477)

Race condition in gdImageStringFTEx (gdft_draw_bitmap) in gdft.c in the GD Graphics Library (libgd) before 2.0.35 allows user-assisted remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via unspecified vectors, possibly involving truetype font (TTF) support. (CVE-2007-3478)

Alerts:
Debian DSA-1613-1 2008-07-22
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0146-01 2008-02-28
SuSE SUSE-SR:2007:015 2007-08-03
Fedora FEDORA-2007-692 2007-09-18
Fedora FEDORA-2007-2055 2007-09-07
Foresight FLEA-2007-0052-1 2007-09-06
rPath rPSA-2007-0176-1 2007-09-05
Trustix TSLSA-2007-0024 2007-08-10
Gentoo 200708-05 2007-08-09
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:153 2007-08-03

Comments (none posted)

gd: denial of service

Package(s):gd CVE #(s):CVE-2007-2756
Created:June 14, 2007 Updated:February 28, 2008
Description: Libgd2 has a denial of service vulnerability involving the incorrect validation of PNG callback results. If an application that is linked against libgd2 is used to process a specially-crafted PNG file, a denial of service involving CPU resource consumption can be caused.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0146-01 2008-02-28
Slackware SSA:2007-178-01 2007-06-27
SuSE SUSE-SR:2007:013 2007-06-22
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:124 2007-06-13
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:123 2007-06-13
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:122 2007-06-13

Comments (none posted)

gdm: denial of service

Package(s):gdm CVE #(s):CVE-2007-3381
Created:August 1, 2007 Updated:September 20, 2007
Description: JLANTHEA reported a denial of service flaw in the way that gdm listens on its Unix domain socket. Any local user can crash the locally running X session.
Alerts:
rPath rPSA-2007-0193-1 2007-09-19
Gentoo 200709-11 2007-09-18
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:169 2007-08-21
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0777-01 2007-08-07
Foresight FLEA-2007-0041-1 2007-08-03
Fedora FEDORA-2007-653 2007-08-01
Fedora FEDORA-2007-1362 2007-07-31

Comments (none posted)

gimp: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):gimp CVE #(s):CVE-2007-2949
Created:June 28, 2007 Updated:February 27, 2008
Description: The gimp image editor has several vulnerabilities, including a problem where it can open PSD files with excessive dimensions and a possible stack overflow in the Sunras loader.
Alerts:
SuSE SUSE-SR:2007:015 2007-08-03
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0513-01 2007-09-26
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:170 2007-08-23
Slackware SSA:2007-222-01 2007-08-13
Foresight FLEA-2007-0038-1 2007-08-01
Gentoo 200707-09 2007-07-25
Fedora FEDORA-2007-627 2007-07-16
Debian DSA-1335-1 2007-07-18
Fedora FEDORA-2007-1099 2007-07-16
Fedora FEDORA-2007-1044 2007-07-12
rPath rPSA-2007-0138-1 2007-07-11
Ubuntu USN-480-1 2007-07-04
Fedora FEDORA-2007-618 2007-06-27
Fedora FEDORA-2007-619 2007-06-27
Fedora FEDORA-2007-0725 2007-06-27

Comments (none posted)

HelixPlayer: arbitrary code execution

Package(s):HelixPlayer CVE #(s):CVE-2007-3410
Created:June 27, 2007 Updated:September 17, 2007
Description: A buffer overflow flaw was found in the way HelixPlayer processed Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL) files. It was possible for a malformed SMIL file to execute arbitrary code with the permissions of the user running HelixPlayer. (CVE-2007-3410)
Alerts:
Gentoo 200709-05 2007-09-14
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0841-01 2007-08-17
Fedora FEDORA-2007-0756 2007-06-29
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0605-01 2007-06-27

Comments (1 posted)

horde-kronolith: local file inclusion

Package(s):horde-kronolith CVE #(s):CVE-2006-6175
Created:January 17, 2007 Updated:March 7, 2008
Description: Kronolith contains a mistake in lib/FBView.php where a raw, unfiltered string is used instead of a sanitized string to view local files. An authenticated attacker could craft an HTTP GET request that uses directory traversal techniques to execute any file on the web server as PHP code, which could allow information disclosure or arbitrary code execution with the rights of the user running the PHP application (usually the webserver user).
Alerts:
Gentoo 200701-11 2007-01-16

Comments (none posted)

ImageMagick: integer overflows

Package(s):imagemagick CVE #(s):CVE-2007-1797
Created:April 4, 2007 Updated:April 17, 2008
Description: Multiple integer overflows in ImageMagick before 6.3.3-5 allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via (1) a crafted DCM image, which results in a heap-based overflow in the ReadDCMImage function, or (2) the (a) colors or (b) comments field in a crafted XWD image, which results in a heap-based overflow in the ReadXWDImage function, different issues than CVE-2007-1667.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0165-01 2008-04-16
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0145-01 2008-04-16
Fedora FEDORA-2007-1340 2007-07-30
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:147 2007-07-20
Ubuntu USN-481-1 2007-07-10
Gentoo 200705-13 2007-05-10
Fedora FEDORA-2007-414 2007-04-17
Fedora FEDORA-2007-413 2007-04-05
rPath rPSA-2007-0064-1 2007-04-04

Comments (none posted)

ipsec-tools: denial of service

Package(s):ipsec-tools CVE #(s):CVE-2007-1841
Created:April 10, 2007 Updated:August 28, 2007
Description: A flaw was discovered in the IPSec key exchange server "racoon". Remote attackers could send a specially crafted packet and disrupt established IPSec tunnels, leading to a denial of service.
Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2007-665 2007-08-27
Debian DSA-1299-1 2007-06-07
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0342-01 2007-05-17
Gentoo 200705-09