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The future of unencrypted web traffic

By Jake Edge
January 2, 2008

Hypertext transfer protocol (http) is the heart of the web, providing the means to retrieve content from remote servers. It is an unencrypted, text-based protocol which allows malicious intermediaries to snoop on and potentially modify the traffic. Unfortunately, internet service providers (ISPs) are getting increasingly bold in manipulating the traffic that they carry. This has lead some to call for the elimination of http, in favor of encrypted http (aka secure http or https).

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An ISP is perfectly situated to gather an enormous amount of information about its users, their website preferences and habits (often called clickstream data). Some have reportedly been selling some of that data in a thinly-anonymized form to advertisers and others. As AOL's well-intentioned, but poorly implemented, release of search queries showed, it is rather easy to analyze this kind of data and pierce the anonymity, deriving the specific user.

Another recent ISP trick is to modify a retrieved web page to display other information – under the control of the ISP – which looks like it comes from the website itself. Canadian ISP Rogers Internet has been testing a system to add content to the Google homepage for their customers who are near their monthly bandwidth limits. There are also plans afoot for ISPs to use clickstream data to target advertising – though just where those ads would show up is far from clear.

This kind of manipulation is unlikely to be what internet users expect – to the extent they think about it all. The model folks tend to use is that of a phone company; we do not expect them to sell our call records to the highest bidder, nor do we give them license to modify our calls. Various telecommunications privacy laws protect that data, but those laws have not (yet) been applied to internet traffic. In addition, ISPs tend to have a monopoly or near-monopoly, which restricts alternative, less-intrusive ISPs from competing.

Fortunately, there are technical solutions possible in the internet realm that would be difficult or impossible to implement network-wide in the phone system. Encrypting website traffic will go a long way towards eliminating this kind of ISP abuse, though it is no panacea. As more of these kinds of privacy invasions occur, we should see more routine use of https by websites.

Currently, https is almost exclusively used for e-commerce transactions; typing in credit card numbers and the like. Authentication via username and password is another area that sees widespread encrypted pages. Sites may start to use https for their entire site to combat clickstream and page rewriting abuse – though there will still be some information leakage as the ISPs can still see what sites are being visited.

In order to make an https connection, the server must have a certificate with its public key. Typically those are signed by an authority recognized by browsers which allows the browser to authenticate that the certificate belongs to the host visited. Getting signed certificates is a bit cumbersome, costs some money, and they need to be renewed periodically – all of which adds up to a headache for a site, especially a small, non-commercial site, that wants to switch to using https. Self-signed certificates are an alternative, but because they are susceptible to man-in-the-middle attacks, browsers warn their users when they receive one.

Another problem with this approach is the extra processing required on the server to support encrypting each and every request. There is a non-trivial amount of extra work that must be done per request and cannot be cached. Sites that wish to avoid the problems that some ISPs are introducing will just have to bear that cost.

Pushing bits is not very glamorous, but that is really what one hires an ISP to do. Since they seem to be finding new and exciting ways to interfere with those bits – Comcast messing with BitTorrent traffic for example – internet users will have to find ways to thwart their schemes and encryption will be a big part of that effort. Using https site-wide is only one step, other services will also need to be protected from ISP abuse. What if an ISP started manipulating the results returned from DNS queries, perhaps routing some to a server they control?

Comments (32 posted)

LWN adds a Security index

LWN has added a new index to complement the existing Kernel index. The Security index covers security articles we have published since the start of 2007. Hopefully this will be a useful resource for our readers and, as always, we value your comments. Please send them to lwn-AT-lwn.net.

Comments (none posted)

New vulnerabilities

autofs: privilege escalation

Package(s):autofs CVE #(s):CVE-2007-6285
Created:December 21, 2007 Updated:January 14, 2008
Description: The default configuration for autofs 5 (autofs5) on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 4 and 5 does not specify the nodev mount option for the -hosts map, which allows local users to access "important devices" by operating a remote NFS server and creating special device files on that server.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2007:1176-01 2007-12-20
Red Hat RHSA-2007:1177-01 2007-12-20
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 (1 posted)

bind: insecure permissions

Package(s):bind CVE #(s):CVE-2007-6283
Created:December 21, 2007 Updated:July 10, 2008
Description: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and Fedora install the Bind /etc/rndc.key file with world-readable permissions, which allows local users to perform unauthorized named commands, such as causing a denial of service by stopping named.
Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4655 2007-12-20
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4658 2007-12-20
Fedora FEDORA-2008-0903 2008-01-22
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0300-02 2008-05-21
Fedora FEDORA-2008-6281 2008-07-09

Comments (1 posted)

clamav: mystery vulnerability

Package(s):clamav CVE #(s):CVE-2007-6337
Created:December 31, 2007 Updated:January 22, 2008
Description: Clamav contains "an unspecified vulnerability" associated with the bzip2 decompression code.
Alerts:
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

Comments (1 posted)

exiftags: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):exiftags CVE #(s):CVE-2007-6354 CVE-2007-6355 CVE-2007-6356
Created:December 31, 2007 Updated:April 1, 2008
Description: From the Gentoo advisory: Meder Kydyraliev (Google Security) discovered that Exif metadata is not properly sanitized before being processed, resulting in illegal memory access in the postprop() and other functions (CVE-2007-6354). He also discovered integer overflow vulnerabilities in the parsetag() and other functions (CVE-2007-6355) and an infinite recursion in the readifds() function caused by recursive IFD references (CVE-2007-6356).
Alerts:
Gentoo 200712-17 2007-12-29
Debian DSA-1533-1 2008-03-27
Debian DSA-1533-2 2008-04-01

Comments (none posted)

exiv2: integer overflow

Package(s):exiv2 CVE #(s):CVE-2007-6353
Created:December 21, 2007 Updated:June 23, 2008
Description: Integer overflow in exif.cpp in exiv2 library allows context-dependent attackers to execute arbitrary code via a crafted EXIF file that triggers a heap-based buffer overflow.
Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4551 2007-12-20
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4591 2007-12-20
Gentoo 200712-16 2007-12-29
SuSE SUSE-SR:2008:001 2008-01-09
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:006 2007-01-10
Debian DSA-1474-1 2008-01-23
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:119 2007-06-19

Comments (none posted)

gallery2: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):gallery2 CVE #(s):CVE-2007-6685 CVE-2007-6686 CVE-2007-6687 CVE-2007-6688 CVE-2007-6689 CVE-2007-6690 CVE-2007-6691 CVE-2007-6692 CVE-2007-6693
Created:December 27, 2007 Updated:February 12, 2008
Description: Versions of the Gallery photo management application before 2.2.4 have the following vulnerabilities: (1) an unauthorized album creation and file upload, (2) a local file inclusion vulnerability, (3) several cross site scripting vulnerabilities, (4) a web-accessibility protection problem, (5) problems with checks for disallowed file extensions with file uploads, (6) missing permissions checks on GR commands, (7) several information disclosures, (8) an arbitrary URL redirection problem and (9) a proxied request weakness.
Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4777 2007-12-26
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4778 2007-12-26
Gentoo 200802-04 2008-02-11

Comments (none posted)

Ganglia: cross-site scripting

Package(s):ganglia CVE #(s):
Created:December 21, 2007 Updated:January 2, 2008
Description: Ganglia is a scalable, real-time monitoring and execution environment with all execution requests and statistics expressed in an open well-defined XML format. The Ganglia web frontend is vulnerable to cross-site scripting.
Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4562 2007-12-20
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4584 2007-12-20

Comments (none posted)

imlib: denial of service

Package(s):imlib CVE #(s):CVE-2007-3568
Created:December 28, 2007 Updated:January 2, 2008
Description: The _LoadBMP function in imlib 1.9.15 and earlier allows context-dependent attackers to cause a denial of service (infinite loop) via a BMP image with a Bits Per Page (BPP) value of 0.
Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4594 2007-12-28
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4561 2007-12-28

Comments (none posted)

kernel: information leak, denial of service

Package(s):linux-2.6 CVE #(s):CVE-2007-6206 CVE-2007-6417
Created:December 21, 2007 Updated:July 8, 2008
Description: Blake Frantz discovered that when a core file owned by a non-root user exists, and a root-owned process dumps core over it, the core file retains its original ownership. This could be used by a local user to gain access to sensitive information. (CVE-2007-6206)

Hugh Dickins discovered an issue in the tmpfs filesystem where, under a rare circumstance, a kernel page maybe improperly cleared, leaking sensitive kernel memory to userspace or resulting in a DoS (crash). (CVE-2007-6417)

Alerts:
Debian DSA-1436-1 2007-12-20
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0089-01 2008-01-23
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0055-01 2008-01-31
Ubuntu USN-574-1 2008-02-04
SuSE SUSE-SA:2008:006 2008-02-07
rPath rPSA-2008-0048-1 2008-02-08
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:044 2008-02-12
SuSE SUSE-SA:2008:007 2008-02-12
Ubuntu USN-578-1 2008-02-14
Debian DSA-1503 2008-02-22
Debian DSA-1504 2008-02-22
Debian DSA-1503-2 2008-03-06
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:086 2008-04-15
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0211-01 2008-05-07
CentOS CESA-2008:0211 2008-05-07
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:112 2007-06-12
SuSE SUSE-SA:2008:030 2008-06-20
SuSE SUSE-SA:2008:032 2008-07-07

Comments (none posted)

mt-daapd: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):mt-daapd CVE #(s):CVE-2007-5825 CVE-2007-5824
Created:December 31, 2007 Updated:June 13, 2008
Description: From the Gentoo advisory: nnp discovered multiple vulnerabilities in the XML-RPC handler in the file webserver.c. The ws_addarg() function contains a format string vulnerability, as it does not properly sanitize username and password data from the "Authorization: Basic" HTTP header line (CVE-2007-5825). The ws_decodepassword() and ws_getheaders() functions do not correctly handle empty Authorization header lines, or header lines without a ':' character, leading to NULL pointer dereferences (CVE-2007-5824).
Alerts:
Gentoo 200712-18 2007-12-29
Debian DSA-1597-1 2008-06-12

Comments (none posted)

mysql: denial of service

Package(s):mysql-dfsg-5.0 CVE #(s):CVE-2007-6304
Created:December 21, 2007 Updated:April 7, 2008
Description: Philip Stoev discovered that the the federated engine of MySQL did not properly handle responses with a small number of columns. An authenticated user could use a crafted response to a SHOW TABLE STATUS query and cause a denial of service.
Alerts:
Ubuntu USN-559-1 2007-12-21
Debian DSA-1451-1 2008-01-06
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:017 2008-01-19
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:028 2007-01-29
SuSE SUSE-SR:2008:003 2008-02-07
Gentoo 200804-04 2008-04-06

Comments (none posted)

peercast: buffer overflow

Package(s):peercast CVE #(s):CVE-2007-6454
Created:December 28, 2007 Updated:May 21, 2008
Description: A heap-based buffer overflow in the handshakeHTTP function in servhs.cpp in PeerCast 0.1217 and earlier, and SVN 344 and earlier, allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service and possibly execute arbitrary code via a long SOURCE request.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-1441-1 2007-12-28
Gentoo 200801-22:02 2008-01-30
Debian DSA-1583-1 2008-05-20

Comments (none posted)

syslog-ng: denial of service

Package(s):syslog-ng CVE #(s):CVE-2007-6437
Created:December 31, 2007 Updated:January 21, 2008
Description: The syslog-ng daemon does not properly handle messages containing an unterminated time stamp, resulting in the dereferencing of a NULL pointer and subsequent crash.
Alerts:
Gentoo 200712-19 2007-12-29
Debian DSA-1464-1 2008-01-15
Fedora FEDORA-2008-0559 2008-01-16
Fedora FEDORA-2008-0523 2008-01-16

Comments (1 posted)

typo3-src: SQL injection

Package(s):typo3-src CVE #(s):CVE-2007-6381
Created:December 28, 2007 Updated:January 2, 2008
Description: SQL injection vulnerability in the indexed_search system extension in TYPO3 3.x, 4.0 through 4.0.7, and 4.1 through 4.1.3 allows remote authenticated users to execute arbitrary SQL commands via unspecified vectors.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-1439-1 2007-12-28

Comments (none posted)

wireshark: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):wireshark CVE #(s):CVE-2007-6111 CVE-2007-6112 CVE-2007-6113 CVE-2007-6115 CVE-2007-6116 CVE-2007-6119
Created:December 21, 2007 Updated:January 2, 2008
Description: Multiple unspecified vulnerabilities in Wireshark (formerly Ethereal) allow remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via (1) a crafted MP3 file or (2) unspecified vectors to the NCP dissector. (CVE-2007-6111)

Buffer overflow in the PPP dissector Wireshark 0.99.6 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) and possibly execute arbitrary code via unknown vectors. (CVE-2007-6112)

Wireshark 0.10.12 to 0.99.6 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (long loop) via a malformed DNP packet. (CVE-2007-6113)

Buffer overflow in the ANSI MAP dissector for Wireshark 0.99.5 to 0.99.6, when running on unspecified platforms, allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service and possibly execute arbitrary code via unknown vectors. (CVE-2007-6115)

The Firebird/Interbase dissector in Wireshark 0.99.6 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (infinite loop or crash) via unknown vectors. (CVE-2007-6116)

The DCP ETSI dissector in Wireshark 0.99.6 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (long loop and resource consumption) via unknown vectors. (CVE-2007-6119)

Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4590 2007-12-20
Fedora FEDORA-2007-4690 2007-12-21

Comments (none posted)

wireshark: lots of dissector vulnerabilities

Package(s):wireshark CVE #(s):CVE-2007-6111 CVE-2007-6112 CVE-2007-6113 CVE-2007-6114 CVE-2007-6115 CVE-2007-6116 CVE-2007-6117 CVE-2007-6118 CVE-2007-6119 CVE-2007-6120 CVE-2007-6121 CVE-2007-6438 CVE-2007-6439 CVE-2007-6441 CVE-2007-6450 CVE-2007-6451
Created:December 31, 2007 Updated:February 22, 2008
Description: Wireshark has disclosed another long list of dissector vulnerabilities; see this advisory for details.
Alerts:
Gentoo 200712-23 2007-12-30
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:1 2007-01-02
Debian DSA-1446-1 2008-01-03
rPath rPSA-2008-0004-1 2008-01-03
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:001-1 2007-01-08
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0059-01 2008-01-21
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0058-01 2008-01-21
SuSE SUSE-SR:2008:004 2008-02-22

Comments (1 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)

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)

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: 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)

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)

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)

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: 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:
Red Hat RHSA-2007:0975-02 2007-10-22
Fedora FEDORA-2007-2596 2007-11-01
Fedora FEDORA-2007-730 2007-11-05
Mandriva MDKSA-2007:214 2007-11-08
Gentoo 200711-15 2007-11-12
Ubuntu USN-540-1 2007-11-13
rPath rPSA-2007-0243-1 2007-11-21
Debian DSA-1469-1 2008-01-20