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The backdooring of SquirrelMail

By Jonathan Corbet
December 19, 2007
SquirrelMail advertises itself as "webmail for nuts." It is a PHP-based package which is in wide use; most distributions include a SquirrelMail package. Security problems in SquirrelMail are certainly not unheard-of; even so, the announcement that the source distribution for version 1.4.12 had been compromised raised some eyebrows. Initially the project downplayed the problem:

Further investigations show that the modifications to the code should have little to no impact at this time. Modifications seemed to be based around a PHP global variable which we cannot track down. The changes made will most likely generate an error, rather than a compromise of a system in the event the code does get executed.

It only took one day, though, before Uwe Schindler pointed out that, in fact, the changes made to the source opened a remote-execution back door into deployed SquirrelMail systems. Somewhere along the way, the project discovered that the 1.4.11 release had also been tampered with. The SquirrelMail developers released version 1.4.13 to close the vulnerabilities.

There have not been any public reports of systems being compromised by way of this vulnerability. Additionally, it would appear that all of the distributors which shipped the affected versions got their version of the code prior to the attack. So the episode would appear to have ended reasonably well - as far as we know. There are some lessons that one can take from this attack, though.

The downplaying of the problem initially was a potentially fatal mistake. If somebody has been tampering with the sources, there is no excuse not to go into red-alert mode immediately, even if the developers involved do not understand the attack. When a project has been compromised at such a fundamental level, one must assume the worst.

The compromise was discovered after a user noticed that the tarballs on the download site did not match the posted MD5 checksums. Your editor suspects that very few of us actually verify checksums in the packages they take from the net. Doing so more often would be a good exercise in software hygiene for all of us.

That said, the project got lucky this time around. A smarter attacker would have replaced the checksums after adding the back door, making the changes harder to detect. Longer-term, the increasing doubts about the security of MD5 suggest that relying on it to detect changes to tarballs might not be entirely safe. Far better to use public-key signatures; they should have a longer shelf life, and, if the keys are managed properly, they are impossible to replace. It seems that the project has posted GPG signatures for 1.4.13, though the Wayback Machine suggests that this is a recent practice. Your editor was unable to find the public key needed to verify the signatures.

The modifications to the tarballs were done using a compromised developer's account. The specific changes made were not put into the SquirrelMail source repository. The project has said nothing, though, about what has been done to ensure that no other changes were made there. Some sort of statement from the project along these lines would be most reassuring to SquirrelMail's users.

Perhaps the most encouraging conclusion, though, is this: there have been several attempts to compromise source distributions over the years. Many of them have succeeded in getting bad code into high-profile packages. But none of these attacks - so far as we know - have escaped detection for any significant period of time, and none of them have led to any sort of wide-scale exploit. As a whole, we would appear to be reasonably resistant to this kind of attack, even when the front-line defenses fail. With luck, and continued vigilance, that trend will continue. Both will be required, though: there is no doubt that the attackers will keep trying.

Comments (20 posted)

Security news

'You've Got Cross-Site Scripting' (Dark Reading)

Dark Reading reports on a new email alert service for cross-site scripting bugs. "So XSSed.com, a site dedicated to archiving publicly disclosed XSS bugs, is now offering a free email alert service that notifies you as soon as an XSS vulnerability affecting your Website gets indexed to its archive. XSSed claims to have the industry's largest XSS archive, with over 17,000 disclosed vulnerabilities as of this posting."

Comments (2 posted)

New vulnerabilities

clamav: integer overflow and off-by-one

Package(s):clamav CVE #(s):CVE-2007-6335 CVE-2007-6336
Created:December 19, 2007 Updated:February 13, 2008
Description: ClamAV contains integer overflow and off-by-one errors which could be exploited (via specially-crafted email) to execute arbitrary code.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-1435-1 2007-12-19
Gentoo 200712-20 2007-12-29
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:003 2007-01-08
SuSE SUSE-SR:2008:001 2008-01-09
Fedora FEDORA-2008-0170 2008-01-22
Fedora FEDORA-2008-0115 2008-01-22
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1608 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1625 2008-02-13

Comments (none posted)

cups: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):cups CVE #(s):CVE-2007-5849 CVE-2007-6358 CVE-2007-4352 CVE-2007-5392 CVE-2007-5393
Created:December 19, 2007 Updated:April 3, 2008
Description: The cups 1.3.5 release fixes a number of vulnerabilities in the PDF filters. Additionally, there is a buffer overflow in the SNMP code and a temporary file vulnerability.
Alerts:
Gentoo 200712-14 2007-12-18
Debian DSA-1437-1 2007-12-26
Ubuntu USN-563-1 2008-01-09
SuSE SUSE-SA:2008:002 2008-01-10
SuSE SUSE-SR:2008:002 2008-01-25
Debian DSA-1480-1 2008-02-05
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:036 2007-02-06
Debian DSA-1537-1 2008-04-02

Comments (none posted)

flash-plugin: lots of problems

Package(s):flash-plugin CVE #(s):CVE-2007-5275 CVE-2007-4324 CVE-2007-4768 CVE-2007-6242 CVE-2007-6243 CVE-2007-6244 CVE-2007-6245 CVE-2007-6246
Created:December 19, 2007 Updated:April 18, 2008
Description: A vast number of vulnerabilities exists in the proprietary Flash plugin for Firefox.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2007:1126-01 2007-12-18
SuSE SUSE-SA:2007:069 2007-12-21
Gentoo 200801-07:02 2008-01-20
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0221-01 2008-04-08
SuSE SUSE-SA:2008:022 2008-04-11
Gentoo 200804-21 2008-04-18

Comments (3 posted)

IRC Services: denial of service

Package(s):ircservices CVE #(s):CVE-2007-6122
Created:December 14, 2007 Updated:December 19, 2007
Description: loverboy reported that the "default_encrypt()" function in file encrypt.c does not properly handle overly long passwords. A remote attacker could provide an overly long password to the vulnerable server, resulting in a denial of service.
Alerts:
Gentoo 200712-12 2007-12-13

Comments (none posted)

kdebase: denial of service

Package(s):kdebase CVE #(s):CVE-2007-5963
Created:December 18, 2007 Updated:December 19, 2007
Description: The kdebase package is vulnerable to a denial of service in which a local user can render KDM unusable for logins by any user or cause KDM to exceed system resource limits.
Alerts:
rPath rPSA-2007-0268-1 2007-12-17

Comments (none posted)

kernel: denial of service

Package(s):kernel CVE #(s):CVE-2007-5966
Created:December 19, 2007 Updated:June 13, 2008
Description: A bug in high-resolution timers (prior to kernel 2.6.22.15) can cause very long sleeps when large timeout values are used.
Alerts:
rPath rPSA-2007-0269-1 2007-12-18
Debian DSA-1436-1 2007-12-20
Ubuntu USN-574-1 2008-02-04
SuSE SUSE-SA:2008:006 2008-02-07
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:112 2007-06-12

Comments (none posted)

libexif: integer overflow

Package(s):libexif CVE #(s):CVE-2007-6352
Created:December 19, 2007 Updated:February 11, 2008
Description: From the Red Hat advisory: An integer overflow flaw was found in the way libexif parses Exif image tags. If a victim opens a carefully crafted Exif image file, it could cause the application linked against libexif to execute arbitrary code, or crash.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2007:1166-01 2007-12-19
Red Hat RHSA-2007:1165-01 2007-12-19
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4667 2007-12-20
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4608 2007-12-20
Gentoo 200712-15 2007-12-29
rPath rPSA-2008-0006-1 2008-01-04
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:005 2007-01-09
SuSE SUSE-SR:2008:002 2008-01-25
Debian DSA-1487-1 2008-02-08

Comments (none posted)

libexif: denial of service

Package(s):libexif CVE #(s):CVE-2007-6351
Created:December 19, 2007 Updated:February 11, 2008
Description: From the Red Hat advisory: An infinite recursion flaw was found in the way libexif parses Exif image tags. If a victim opens a carefully crafted Exif image file, it could cause the application linked against libexif to crash.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2007:1165-01 2007-12-19
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4667 2007-12-20
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4608 2007-12-20
Gentoo 200712-15 2007-12-29
rPath rPSA-2008-0006-1 2008-01-04
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:005 2007-01-09
SuSE SUSE-SR:2008:002 2008-01-25
Debian DSA-1487-1 2008-02-08

Comments (none posted)

libgd2: buffer overflow

Package(s):libgd2 CVE #(s):CVE-2007-3996
Created:December 19, 2007 Updated:January 29, 2008
Description: The GD library does not perform proper bounds checking when creating images; as a result, an attacker could, via crafted input, potentially execute arbitrary code.
Alerts:
Ubuntu USN-557-1 2007-12-18
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0917-01 2007-10-23
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0891-01 2007-10-25
SuSE SUSE-SA:2008:004 2008-01-29

Comments (none posted)

mysql: privilege escalation

Package(s):mysql CVE #(s):CVE-2007-6303
Created:December 19, 2007 Updated:April 7, 2008
Description: From the CVE entry: MySQL 5.0.x before 5.0.52, 5.1.x before 5.1.23, and 6.0.x before 6.0.4 does not update the DEFINER value of a view when the view is altered, which allows remote authenticated users to gain privileges via a sequence of statements including a CREATE SQL SECURITY DEFINER VIEW statement and an ALTER VIEW statement.
Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4471 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4465 2007-12-15
Red Hat RHSA-2007:1157-01 2007-12-19
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:017 2008-01-19
SuSE SUSE-SR:2008:003 2008-02-07
Ubuntu USN-588-1 2008-03-19
Ubuntu USN-588-2 2008-04-02
Gentoo 200804-04 2008-04-06

Comments (none posted)

portage: information disclosure

Package(s):portage CVE #(s):CVE-2007-6249
Created:December 14, 2007 Updated:December 19, 2007
Description: Mike Frysinger reported that the "etc-update" utility uses temporary files with the standard umask, which results in the files being world-readable when merging configuration files in a default setup. A local attacker could access sensitive information when configuration files are being merged.
Alerts:
Gentoo 200712-11 2007-12-13

Comments (none posted)

squid: denial of service

Package(s):squid CVE #(s):CVE-2007-6239
Created:December 18, 2007 Updated:April 15, 2008
Description: A flaw was found in the way squid stored HTTP headers for cached objects in system memory. An attacker could cause squid to use additional memory, and trigger high CPU usage when processing requests for certain cached objects, possibly leading to a denial of service.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2007:1130-01 2007-12-18
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4161 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4170 2007-12-15
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:002 2007-01-04
SuSE SUSE-SR:2008:001 2008-01-09
Gentoo 200801-05 2008-01-09
Ubuntu USN-565-1 2008-01-09
Debian DSA-1482-1 2008-02-05
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0214-01 2008-04-08
Ubuntu USN-601-1 2008-04-14

Comments (none posted)

wpa_supplicant: stack-based buffer overflow

Package(s):wpa_supplicant CVE #(s):CVE-2007-6025
Created:December 14, 2007 Updated:December 19, 2007
Description: A stack-based buffer overflow in driver_wext.c in wpa_supplicant 0.6.0 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via crafted TSF data.
Alerts:
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:245 2007-12-13

Comments (1 posted)

Xfce: buffer overflows

Package(s):xfce4 CVE #(s):
Created:December 19, 2007 Updated:December 19, 2007
Description: The Xfce desktop contains a number of buffer overflow vulnerabilities; they have been fixed in the 4.4.2 release.
Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4385 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4368 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4385 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4368 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4385 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4368 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4368 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4385 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4368 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4385 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4368 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4385 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4368 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4385 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4368 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4385 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4368 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4385 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4385 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4385 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4385 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4385 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4385 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4385 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4385 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4385 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4385 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4385 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4385 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4385 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4385 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4385 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4368 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4368 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4368 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4368 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4368 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4368 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4368 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4368 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4368 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4368 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4368 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4368 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4368 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4385 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4368 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4385 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4368 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4385 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4368 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4385 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4368 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4385 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4368 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4385 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4368 2007-12-15

Comments (none posted)

Updated vulnerabilities

cairo: integer overflow

Package(s):Cairo CVE #(s):CVE-2007-5503
Created:November 29, 2007 Updated:April 10, 2008
Description: Cairo has an integer overflow vulnerability in the PNG image processing code. If a user processes a specially crafted PNG image with an application that is linked against cairo, arbitrary code can be executed with the user's privileges.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2007:1078-02 2007-11-29
Slackware SSA:2007-337-01 2007-12-04
Ubuntu USN-550-1 2007-12-03
Gentoo 200712-04 2007-12-09
Ubuntu USN-550-2 2007-12-10
Ubuntu USN-550-3 2007-12-13
rPath rPSA-2008-0015-1 2008-01-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-3818 2008-01-16
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:019 2007-01-21
SuSE SUSE-SR:2008:003 2008-02-07
Debian DSA-1542-1 2008-04-09

Comments (none posted)

Django: denial of service

Package(s):Django CVE #(s):CVE-2007-5712
Created:November 12, 2007 Updated:May 21, 2008
Description:

From the CVE notice:

The internationalization (i18n) framework in Django 0.91, 0.95, 0.95.1, and 0.96, and as used in other products such as PyLucid, when the USE_I18N option and the i18n component are enabled, allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (memory consumption) via many HTTP requests with large Accept-Language headers.

Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2007-3157 2007-11-09
Fedora FEDORA-2007-2788 2007-11-09

Comments (none posted)

MySQL: privilege escalation

Package(s):MySQL CVE #(s):CVE-2007-3781 CVE-2007-5969
Created:December 11, 2007 Updated:May 21, 2008
Description: MySQL Community Server before 5.0.51, when a table relies on symlinks created through explicit DATA DIRECTORY and INDEX DIRECTORY options, allows remote authenticated users to overwrite system table information and gain privileges via a RENAME TABLE statement that changes the symlink to point to an existing file. (CVE-2007-5969)

MySQL Community Server before 5.0.45 does not require privileges such as SELECT for the source table in a CREATE TABLE LIKE statement, which allows remote authenticated users to obtain sensitive information such as the table structure. (CVE-2007-3781)

Alerts:
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:243 2007-12-10
Red Hat RHSA-2007:1155-01 2007-12-18
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4471 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4465 2007-12-15
Red Hat RHSA-2007:1157-01 2007-12-19
Ubuntu USN-559-1 2007-12-21
Debian DSA-1451-1 2008-01-06
rPath rPSA-2008-0018-1 2008-01-17
SuSE SUSE-SR:2008:003 2008-02-07
Gentoo 200804-04 2008-04-06
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0364-01 2008-05-21

Comments (none posted)

Sun JDK/JRE: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):Sun JDK/JRE CVE #(s):CVE-2007-2435 CVE-2007-2788 CVE-2007-2789
Created:June 1, 2007 Updated:April 18, 2008
Description: An unspecified vulnerability involving an "incorrect use of system classes" was reported by the Fujitsu security team. Additionally, Chris Evans from the Google Security Team reported an integer overflow resulting in a buffer overflow in the ICC parser used with JPG or BMP files, and an incorrect open() call to /dev/tty when processing certain BMP files.
Alerts:
Gentoo 200705-23 2007-05-31
Gentoo 200706-08 2007-06-26
SuSE SUSE-SA:2007:045 2007-07-18
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0817-01 2007-08-06
Red Hat RHSA-2007:1086-01 2007-12-12
Gentoo 200804-20 2008-04-17

Comments (none posted)

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:
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:127 2007-06-19
Fedora FEDORA-2007-0704 2007-06-26
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1711 2008-02-15

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

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:
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0618-01 2006-08-08
Red Hat RHSA-2006:0619-01 2006-08-10
Debian DSA-1167-1 2005-09-04
SuSE SUSE-SA:2006:051 2006-09-08
Ubuntu USN-575-1 2008-02-04
SuSE SUSE-SA:2008:021 2008-04-04

Comments (none posted)

httpd: denial of service, cross-site scripting

Package(s):apache httpd CVE #(s):CVE-2007-3847 CVE-2007-4465
Created:September 25, 2007 Updated:February 15, 2008
Description: A flaw was found in the mod_proxy module. On sites where a reverse proxy is configured, a remote attacker could send a carefully crafted request that would cause the Apache child process handling that request to crash. On sites where a forward proxy is configured, an attacker could cause a similar crash if a user could be persuaded to visit a malicious site using the proxy. This could lead to a denial of service if using a threaded Multi-Processing Module. (CVE-2007-3847)

A flaw was found in the mod_autoindex module. On sites where directory listings are used, and the AddDefaultCharset directive has been removed from the configuration, a cross-site-scripting attack may be possible against browsers which do not correctly derive the response character set following the rules in RFC 2616. (CVE-2007-4465)

Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2007-707 2007-09-24
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0911-01 2007-10-25
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0746-04 2007-11-07
Gentoo 200711-06 2007-11-07
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0747-02 2007-11-15
SuSE SUSE-SA:2007:061 2007-11-19
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:235 2007-12-03
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0004-01 2008-01-15
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0005-01 2008-01-15
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0006-01 2008-01-15
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0008-01 2008-01-15
Ubuntu USN-575-1 2008-02-04
Slackware SSA:2008-045-02 2008-02-15

Comments (none posted)

apache2: denial of service

Package(s):apache2 CVE #(s):CVE-2007-1863
Created:November 19, 2007 Updated:February 18, 2008
Description:

From the CVE entry:

cache_util.c in the mod_cache module in Apache HTTP Server (httpd), when caching is enabled and a threaded Multi-Processing Module (MPM) is used, allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (child processing handler crash) via a request with the (1) s-maxage, (2) max-age, (3) min-fresh, or (4) max-stale Cache-Control headers without a value.

Alerts:
SuSE SUSE-SA:2007:061 2007-11-19
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1711 2008-02-15

Comments (1 posted)

asterisk: possible SQL injection

Package(s):asterisk CVE #(s):CVE-2007-6170
Created:December 3, 2007 Updated:April 15, 2008
Description: Tilghman Lesher discovered that the logging engine of Asterisk, a free software PBX and telephony toolkit, performs insufficient sanitizing of call-related data, which may lead to SQL injection.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-1417-1 2007-12-02
SuSE SUSE-SR:2008:005 2008-03-06
Gentoo 200804-13 2008-04-14

Comments (none posted)

autofs: insecure default configuration

Package(s):autofs CVE #(s):CVE-2007-5964
Created:December 12, 2007 Updated:January 14, 2008
Description: Versions of the autofs automounter daemon as shipped by Red Hat (and possibly other distributors) are installed with an insecure configuration; in particular, the "hosts" map lacks the "nosuid" option, allowing an attacker who has control over an NFS server to run setuid programs on vulnerable systems.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2007:1128-01 2007-12-12
Red Hat RHSA-2007:1129-01 2007-12-12
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4532 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4469 2007-12-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4709 2007-12-21
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4707 2007-12-21
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:009 2007-01-11
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:009-1 2007-01-12

Comments (none posted)

cacti: SQL injection vulnerability

Package(s):cacti CVE #(s):CVE-2007-6035
Created:November 22, 2007 Updated:February 18, 2008
Description: Versions of Cacti prior to 0.8.7a have an SQL injection vulnerability. Remote attackers can execute arbitrary SQL commands via unspecified vectors.
Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2007-3667 2007-11-22
Fedora FEDORA-2007-3683 2007-11-22
SuSE SUSE-SR:2007:024 2007-11-22
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:231 2007-11-22
Debian DSA-1418-1 2007-12-02
Gentoo 200712-02:02 2007-12-05
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1737 2008-02-15
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1699 2008-02-15

Comments (none posted)

cacti: denial of service

Package(s):cacti CVE #(s):CVE-2007-3112 CVE-2007-3113
Created:September 18, 2007 Updated:February 18, 2008
Description: A vulnerability in Cacti 0.8.6i and earlier versions allows remote authenticated users to cause a denial of service (CPU consumption) via large values of the graph_start, graph_end, graph_height, or graph_width parameters.
Alerts:
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:184 2007-09-17
Fedora FEDORA-2007-2199 2007-09-18
Fedora FEDORA-2007-3683 2007-11-22
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1737 2008-02-15

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:
Fedora FEDORA-2007-1160 2007-07-19
Debian-Testing DTSA-55-1 2007-09-03
Debian DSA-1433-1 2007-12-16

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:
Debian DSA-1340-1 2007-07-24
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:150 2007-07-25
Gentoo 200708-04 2007-08-09
SuSE SUSE-SR:2007:015 2007-08-03

Comments (none posted)

clamav: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):clamav CVE #(s):CVE-2007-4510 CVE-2007-4560
Created:September 3, 2007 Updated:February 13, 2008
Description: Several remote vulnerabilities have been discovered in the Clam anti-virus toolkit. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project identifies the following problems:

CVE-2007-4510: It was discovered that the RTF and RFC2397 parsers can be tricked into dereferencing a NULL pointer, resulting in denial of service.

CVE-2007-4560: It was discovered clamav-milter performs insufficient input sanitizing, resulting in the execution of arbitrary shell commands.

Alerts:
Debian DSA-1366-1 2007-09-01
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:172 2007-08-31
Fedora FEDORA-2007-2050 2007-09-07
Gentoo 200709-14 2007-09-20
Fedora FEDORA-2008-0170 2008-01-22
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1608 2008-02-13

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:
Foresight FLEA-2007-0003-1 2007-03-25
Gentoo 200703-28 2007-03-31
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0123-01 2007-04-16
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:086 2007-04-16
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:036 2007-02-06

Comments (none posted)

debian-goodies: privilege escalation

Package(s):debian-goodies CVE #(s):CVE-2007-3912
Created:October 5, 2007 Updated:March 24, 2008
Description: Thomas de Grenier de Latour discovered that the checkrestart program included in debian-goodies did not correctly handle shell meta-characters. A local attacker could exploit this to gain the privileges of the user running checkrestart.
Alerts:
Ubuntu USN-526-1 2007-10-04
Debian DSA-1527-1 2008-03-24

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:
rPath rPSA-2007-0161-1 2007-08-14
Fedora FEDORA-2007-664 2007-08-20
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0297-02 2008-05-21

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:
Fedora FEDORA-2007-493 2007-05-07
Ubuntu USN-487-1 2007-07-17
Debian DSA-1359-1 2007-08-28
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0297-02 2008-05-21

Comments (none posted)

e2fsprogs: integer overflows

Package(s):e2fsprogs CVE #(s):CVE-2007-5497
Created:December 7, 2007 Updated:February 12, 2008
Description: Rafal Wojtczuk of McAfee AVERT Research discovered that e2fsprogs, ext2 file system utilities and libraries, contained multiple integer overflows in memory allocations, based on sizes taken directly from filesystem information. These could result in heap-based overflows potentially allowing the execution of arbitrary code.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-1422 2007-12-07
Ubuntu USN-555-1 2007-12-08
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:242 2007-12-10
rPath rPSA-2007-0262-1 2007-12-11
Gentoo 200712-13 2007-12-18
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0003-01 2008-01-07
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4461 2008-01-16
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4447 2008-01-16
Foresight FLEA-2008-0005-1 2008-02-11

Comments (none posted)

eggdrop: stack-based buffer overflow

Package(s):eggdrop CVE #(s):CVE-2007-2807
Created:September 7, 2007 Updated:January 7, 2008
Description: A stack-based buffer overflow in mod/server.mod/servrmsg.c in Eggdrop 1.6.18, and possibly earlier, allows user-assisted, malicious remote IRC servers to execute arbitrary code via a long private message.
Alerts:
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:175 2007-09-06
Gentoo 200709-07 2007-09-15
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4305 2007-12-10
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4325 2007-12-10
Debian DSA-1448-1 2008-01-05

Comments (none posted)

emacs: buffer overflow

Package(s):emacs CVE #(s):CVE-2007-6109
Created:December 10, 2007 Updated:May 6, 2008
Description:

From the National Vulnerability Database:

Buffer overflow in emacs allows attackers to have an unknown impact, as demonstrated via a vector involving the command line.

Alerts:
Gentoo 200712-03 2007-12-09
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:034 2007-02-04
SuSE SUSE-SR:2008:003 2008-02-07
Ubuntu USN-607-1 2008-05-06

Comments (none posted)

emacs: command execution via local variables

Package(s):emacs CVE #(s):CVE-2007-5795
Created:November 14, 2007 Updated:February 5, 2008
Description: From the original Debian problem report: "In Debian's version of GNU Emacs 22.1+1-2, the `hack-local-variables' function does not behave correctly when `enable-local-variables' is set to :safe. The documentation of `enable-local-variables' states that the value :safe means to set only safe variables, as determined by `safe-local-variable-p' and `risky-local-variable-p' (and the data driving them), but Emacs ignores this and instead sets all the local variables." When this setting (which is not the default) is in effect, opening a hostile file could lead to the execution of arbitrary commands.
Alerts:
Ubuntu USN-541-1 2007-11-13
Fedora FEDORA-2007-3056 2007-11-17
Fedora FEDORA-2007-2946 2007-11-17
Gentoo 200712-03 2007-12-09
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:034 2007-02-04

Comments (1 posted)

emul-linux-x86-qtlibs: arbitrary code execution

Package(s):emul-linux-x86-qtlibs CVE #(s):
Created:December 10, 2007 Updated:December 12, 2007
Description:

From the Gentoo advisory:

An attacker could trigger one of the vulnerabilities by causing a Qt application to parse specially crafted text or Unicode strings, which may lead to the execution of arbitrary code with the privileges of the user running the application.

Alerts:
Gentoo 200712-08 2007-12-09

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:
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:070 2007-03-27
Fedora FEDORA-2007-393 2007-04-04
Fedora FEDORA-2007-404 2007-04-04
Foresight FLEA-2007-0010-1 2007-04-05
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0158-01 2007-05-03
Gentoo 200706-02 2007-06-06
SuSE SUSE-SR:2007:015 2007-08-03

Comments (1 posted)

firebird: arbitrary code execution

Package(s):firebird CVE #(s):CVE-2007-4992 CVE-2007-5246
Created:December 10, 2007 Updated:December 12, 2007
Description:

From the Gentoo advisory:

Adriano Lima and Ramon de Carvalho Valle reported that functions isc_attach_database() and isc_create_database() do not perform proper boundary checking when processing their input.

A remote attacker could send specially crafted requests to the Firebird server on TCP port 3050, possibly resulting in the execution of arbitrary code with the privileges of the user running Firebird (usually firebird).

Alerts:
Gentoo 200712-06 2007-12-09

Comments (none 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:
Gentoo 200707-01 2007-07-01
Debian DSA-1529-1 2008-03-24

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

Comments (none posted)

firefox: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):firefox seamonkey CVE #(s):CVE-2007-5947 CVE-2007-5959 CVE-2007-5960
Created:November 27, 2007 Updated:March 3, 2008
Description: A cross-site scripting flaw was found in the way Firefox handled the jar: URI scheme. It was possible for a malicious website to leverage this flaw and conduct a cross-site scripting attack against a user running Firefox. (CVE-2007-5947)

Several flaws were found in the way Firefox processed certain malformed web content. A webpage containing malicious content could cause Firefox to crash, or potentially execute arbitrary code as the user running Firefox. (CVE-2007-5959)

A race condition existed when Firefox set the "window.location" property for a webpage. This flaw could allow a webpage to set an arbitrary Referer header, which may lead to a Cross-site Request Forgery (CSRF) attack against websites that rely only on the Referer header for protection. (CVE-2007-5960)

Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2007:1082-01 2007-11-26
Red Hat RHSA-2007:1084-01 2007-11-26
Ubuntu USN-546-1 2007-11-26
Slackware SSA:2007-331-01 2007-11-28
Fedora FEDORA-2007-3952 2007-11-29
Fedora FEDORA-2007-3962 2007-11-29
Slackware SSA:2007-333-01 2007-11-30
Fedora FEDORA-2007-756 2007-12-03
SuSE SUSE-SA:2007:066 2007-12-05
Ubuntu USN-546-2 2007-12-04
rPath rPSA-2007-0260-1 2007-12-06
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4098 2007-12-06
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4106 2007-12-06
Debian DSA-1424-1 2007-12-08
Debian DSA-1425-1 2007-12-08
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:246 2007-12-13
Red Hat RHSA-2007:1083-01 2007-12-19
Gentoo 200712-21 2007-12-29
Foresight FLEA-2008-0001-1 2008-02-11
rPath rPSA-2008-0093-1 2008-02-29

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

Comments (none posted)

flac: arbitrary code execution

Package(s):flac CVE #(s):CVE-2007-4619
Created:October 22, 2007 Updated:January 21, 2008
Description: From the Red Hat advisory:

A security flaw was found in the way flac processed audio data. An attacker could create a carefully crafted FLAC audio file in such a way that it could cause an application linked with flac libraries to crash or execute arbitrary code when it was opened. (CVE-2007-4619)

Alerts:
R