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Security

Voting machine integrity through transparency

By Jake Edge
March 26, 2008

It is hard to believe that governments would spend money on voting equipment that they are not allowed to test, but that is exactly what multiple counties in New Jersey appear to have done. They are certainly not alone, many other places are likely to have the same restrictions on "their" voting machines. This begs the question: where are the free software voting systems?

Union County wanted to ask Ed Felten to look at the voting machines it purchased from Sequoia Voting Systems because of several anomalies—less charitably known as miscounts—observed when using them in the primary elections. Once Sequoia got wind of the plan, they emailed Felten a nastygram because he might engage in "non-compliant analysis" of the machines in violation of the Sequoia license. It seems quite likely that is exactly what Felten and the county clerk had in mind as a third-party analysis is the only sensible way to evaluate voting machines.

Other jurisdictions have done better of late, with Felten's Freedom to Tinker weblog noting that California has denied certification for two voting machines from Election Systems & Software (ES&S). California Secretary of State Debra Bowen has been at the forefront of trying to ensure that voting machines work correctly. LWN's home state of Colorado also decertified a number of voting machines, but, like the earlier California study, it was done after those machines were purchased. As in California, it seems likely that Colorado will be using those machines in November.

Things are getting a little better, perhaps, but no one has, as yet, tried to take on the four major voting machine makers with a system that is built with security in mind. There is no reason that the source code for a voting machine could not be made available for study. The voting machine vendors claim all sorts of proprietary secret sauce in their code, but that isn't the real reason they hide it. Covering up their shoddy code is much more likely.

Every independent review of voting machines has found numerous, fundamental security flaws that should make anyone with an interest in the integrity of the election process cringe. Many of those analyses were done without the source code, so there is little doubt that even uglier problems would have been found in the code itself. It just cannot be that difficult to produce something vastly more secure than what is made available today.

One could speculate about the motives of these companies, but instead looking at what could be built, with mostly off-the-shelf software, is more fruitful. The place to start is by hiring a few good security-minded developers, while lining up an independent review team. One might guess that Felten and his associates would be a good place to start.

A stripped down Linux system could very easily be the basis for a voting machine, but other free software choices would serve just as well. Some user interface code for touchscreens and alternative input methods for those with disabilities would need to be written. Some kind of printing output device would need to be made a part of the system so that voter-verifiable audit trails—better yet, ballots that can be put into a locked box—can be created.

Source code availability does not, in and of itself, ensure vote security. That code needs to be reviewed by as many experts as can be found. In addition, there needs to be some mechanism to show that the source code being reviewed is the same as that being run.

For that reason, the system itself might run on some kind of Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip so that interested parties can verify that the published code is the same as that running on the system. If the system runs Linux, it might use the integrity management patches for that. Most importantly, the outside interfaces (network, USB, PCMCIA, etc.) to the device would either not be present or be very tightly controlled. Any kind of removable vote recording memory would need adequate cryptographic safeguards to eliminate tampering between vote taking and vote tabulating machines.

Instead of an emphasis on PR, schmoozing, and bamboozling non-technical folks, the focus of a free software voting system would be on transparency. The number one goal would be to give everyone, from the least technical voter to the Bruce Schneiers of the world: confidence in the machines and the process. It is hard to fathom how anyone could want anything less.

Comments (15 posted)

The last updated vulnerabilities section

It would seem that the majority of the readers of this page are willing to part with the updated vulnerabilities section. Based on the comments we got over the last two weeks, we decided to remove it in future editions. So, this is the last week you will find one on the security page. You can always visit http://lwn.net/Vulnerabilities/ to get a look at the most recent vulnerabilities in our database.

Comments (6 posted)

New vulnerabilities

asterisk: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):asterisk CVE #(s):CVE-2007-6430 CVE-2008-1332 CVE-2008-1333
Created:March 20, 2008 Updated:April 25, 2008
Description: From the Debian alert:

CVE-2007-6430: Tilghman Lesher discovered that database-based registrations are insufficiently validated. This only affects setups, which are configured to run without a password and only host-based authentication.

CVE-2008-1332: Jason Parker discovered that insufficient validation of From: headers inside the SIP channel driver may lead to authentication bypass and the potential external initiation of calls.

Alerts:
Debian DSA-1525-1 2008-03-20
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2620 2008-03-21
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2554 2008-03-21
Gentoo 200804-13 2008-04-14
SuSE SUSE-SR:2008:010 2008-04-25

Comments (none posted)

asterisk: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):asterisk CVE #(s):CVE-2008-1289 CVE-2008-1390
Created:March 24, 2008 Updated:March 26, 2008
Description:

From the Red Hat bugzilla:

CVE-2008-1289: Two buffer overflows exist in the RTP payload handling code of Asterisk. Both overflows can be caused by an INVITE or any other SIP packet with SDP. The request may need to be authenticated depending on configuration of the Asterisk installation.

The first overflow is caused by sending a payload number that surpasses the programmed maximum payload number of 256. This causes an invalid memory write outside of the buffer. While this does not allow the attacker to write arbitrary data it does allow the attacker to write a 0 to other memory locations.

The second overflow is caused by sending more than 32 RTP payloads. This causes a buffer on the stack to overflow allowing the attacker to write values between 0 and 256 (the maximum payload number) to memory locations after the buffer.

CVE-2008-1390: Due to the way that manager IDs are calculated, this 32-bit integer is likely to have a much larger than average number of 1s, which greatly reduces the number of guesses an attacker would have to make to successfully predict the manager ID, which is used across multiple HTTP queries to hold manager state.

Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2620 2008-03-21
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2554 2008-03-21

Comments (none posted)

bzip2: denial of service

Package(s):bzip2 CVE #(s):CVE-2008-1372
Created:March 24, 2008 Updated:April 9, 2008
Description:

From the CVE entry:

bzlib.c in bzip2 before 1.0.5 allows user-assisted remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via a crafted file that triggers a buffer over-read, as demonstrated by the PROTOS GENOME test suite.

Alerts:
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:075 2007-03-23
rPath rPSA-2008-0118-1 2008-03-21
Ubuntu USN-590-1 2008-03-24
Gentoo 200804-02 2008-04-02
Slackware SSA:2008-098-02 2008-04-08
Fedora FEDORA-2008-3037 2008-04-08
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2970 2008-04-08

Comments (none posted)

Firefox: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):firefox CVE #(s):CVE-2007-4879 CVE-2008-1233 CVE-2008-1234 CVE-2008-1235 CVE-2008-1236 CVE-2008-1237 CVE-2008-1238 CVE-2008-1240 CVE-2008-1241
Created:March 26, 2008 Updated:May 8, 2008
Description: The Firefox 2.0.0.13 release contains fixes for several vulnerabilities; see this list for details.
Alerts:
Ubuntu USN-592-1 2008-03-26
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2662 2008-03-26
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2662 2008-03-26
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2662 2008-03-26
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2662 2008-03-26
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2662 2008-03-26
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2662 2008-03-26
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2662 2008-03-26
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2662 2008-03-26
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2662 2008-03-26
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2662 2008-03-26
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2662 2008-03-26
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2662 2008-03-26
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2662 2008-03-26
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2682 2008-03-26
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2682 2008-03-26
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2682 2008-03-26
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2682 2008-03-26
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2682 2008-03-26
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2682 2008-03-26
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2682 2008-03-26
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2682 2008-03-26
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2682 2008-03-26
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2682 2008-03-26
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2682 2008-03-26
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2682 2008-03-26
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2682 2008-03-26
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2682 2008-03-26
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2682 2008-03-26
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2682 2008-03-26
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0207-01 2008-03-26
Debian DSA-1532-1 2008-03-27
Debian DSA-1534-1 2008-03-28
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0208-01 2008-03-27
rPath rPSA-2008-0128-1 2008-03-27
Debian DSA-1535-1 2008-03-30
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:080 2007-03-28
Slackware SSA:2008-089-01 2008-03-31
Slackware SSA:2008-089-02 2008-03-31
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0209-01 2008-04-03
SuSE SUSE-SA:2008:019 2008-04-04
Debian DSA-1534-2 2008-04-24
rPath rPSA-2008-0128-2 2008-03-27
Ubuntu USN-605-1 2008-05-06
Slackware SSA:2008-128-02 2008-05-08

Comments (none posted)

JBoss: inject and execute arbitrary commands

Package(s):JBoss CVE #(s):CVE-2007-6306 CVE-2007-6433
Created:March 25, 2008 Updated:March 26, 2008
Description: The JFreeChart component was vulnerable to multiple cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities. An attacker could misuse the image map feature to inject arbitrary web script or HTML via several attributes of the chart area. The setOrder method in the org.jboss.seam.framework.Query class did not properly validate user-supplied parameters. This vulnerability allowed remote attackers to inject and execute arbitrary EJBQL commands via the order parameter.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0158-01 2008-03-24

Comments (none posted)

krb5: memory use after free

Package(s):krb5 CVE #(s):CVE-2007-5901
Created:March 24, 2008 Updated:March 26, 2008
Description:

From the CVE entry:

Use-after-free vulnerability in the gss_indicate_mechs function in lib/gssapi/mechglue/g_initialize.c in MIT Kerberos 5 (krb5) has unknown impact and attack vectors. NOTE: this might be the result of a typo in the source code.

Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2647 2008-03-21
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2637 2008-03-21
Gentoo 200803-31 2008-03-24

Comments (none posted)

libsilc: buffer overflow

Package(s):libsilc CVE #(s):
Created:March 24, 2008 Updated:March 26, 2008
Description:

From the Red Hat bugzilla:

SILC Toolkit contains a possible buffer overflow from PKCS#1 message decoding in versions earlier than 1.1.7. Specially crafted digital signature can be used to crash the program.

Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2616 2008-03-21
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2641 2008-03-21

Comments (none posted)

namazu: cross-site scripting

Package(s):namazu CVE #(s):CVE-2008-1468
Created:March 26, 2008 Updated:March 26, 2008
Description: The sanitizing of input to namazu does not work properly with certain encodings, allowing HTML directives and script code to be injected into content.
Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2678 2008-03-26
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2767 2008-03-26

Comments (none posted)

openssh: hijacking of forwarded X connections

Package(s):openssh CVE #(s):CVE-2008-1483
Created:March 25, 2008 Updated:April 11, 2008
Description: OpenSSH 4.3p2, and probably other versions, allows local users to hijack forwarded X connections by causing ssh to set DISPLAY to :10, even when another process is listening on the associated port, as demonstrated by opening TCP port 6010 (IPv4) and sniffing a cookie sent by Emacs.
Alerts:
rPath rPSA-2008-0120-1 2008-03-25
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:078 2007-03-26
Ubuntu USN-597-1 2008-04-01
Gentoo 200804-03 2008-04-05
Slackware SSA:2008-095-01 2008-04-07
SuSE SUSE-SR:2008:009 2008-04-11

Comments (none posted)

ruby: directory traversal

Package(s):ruby CVE #(s):CVE-2008-1145
Created:March 25, 2008 Updated:March 26, 2008
Description: Directory traversal vulnerability in WEBrick in Ruby 1.8 before 1.8.5-p115 and 1.8.6-p114, and 1.9 through 1.9.0-1, when running on systems that support backslash (\) path separators or case-insensitive file names, allows remote attackers to access arbitrary files via (1) "..%5c" (encoded backslash) sequences or (2) filenames that match patterns in the :NondisclosureName option.
Alerts:
rPath rPSA-2008-0123-1 2008-03-25

Comments (none posted)

serendipity : insufficient input sanitizing

Package(s):serendipity CVE #(s):CVE-2007-6205 CVE-2008-0124
Created:March 25, 2008 Updated:March 26, 2008
Description: Serendipity, a weblog manager, did not properly sanitize input to several scripts which allowed for cross site scripting.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-1528-1 2008-03-24

Comments (none posted)

ssl-cert: certificate disclosure

Package(s):ssl-cert CVE #(s):CVE-2008-1383
Created:March 20, 2008 Updated:March 26, 2008
Description: From the Gentoo alert:

Robin Johnson reported that the docert() function provided by ssl-cert.eclass can be called by source building stages of an ebuild, such as src_compile() or src_install(), which will result in the generated SSL keys being included inside binary packages (binpkgs). A local attacker could recover the SSL keys from publicly readable binary packages when "emerge" is called with the "--buildpkg (-b)" or "--buildpkgonly (-B)" option. Remote attackers can recover these keys if the packages are served to a network.

Alerts:
Gentoo 200803-30 2008-03-20

Comments (none posted)

viewvc: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):viewvc CVE #(s):CVE-2008-1290 CVE-2008-1291 CVE-2008-1292
Created:March 20, 2008 Updated:March 26, 2008
Description: From the Gentoo alert:

Multiple unspecified errors were reportedly fixed by the ViewVC development team. A remote attacker could send a specially crafted URL to the server to list CVS or SVN commits on "all-forbidden" files, access hidden CVSROOT folders, and view restricted content via the revision view, the log history, or the diff view.

Alerts:
Gentoo 200803-29 2008-03-19

Comments (none posted)

xine-lib: arbitrary code execution

Package(s):xine-lib CVE #(s):CVE-2008-0073
Created:March 24, 2008 Updated:April 23, 2008
Description:

From the Red Hat bugzilla:

Secunia Research has discovered a vulnerability in xine-lib, which can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a user's system.

The vulnerability is caused due to a boundary error within the "sdpplin_parse()" function in input/libreal/sdpplin.c. This can be exploited to overwrite arbitrary memory regions via an overly large "streamid" SDP parameter included in a malicious RTSP stream.

Successful exploitation allows execution of arbitrary code.

Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2569 2008-03-21
SuSE SUSE-SR:2008:007 2008-03-28
Slackware SSA:2008-089-03 2008-03-31
Debian DSA-1536-1 2008-03-31
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2945 2008-04-08
Debian DSA-1543-1 2008-04-09
Gentoo 200804-25 2008-04-23

Comments (none posted)

xwine: several vulnerabilities

Package(s):xwine CVE #(s):CVE-2008-0930 CVE-2008-0931
Created:March 21, 2008 Updated:March 26, 2008
Description: The xwine command makes unsafe use of local temporary files when printing. This could allow the removal of arbitrary files belonging to users who invoke the program. The xwine command changes the permissions of the global WINE configuration file such that it is world-writable. This could allow local users to edit it such that arbitrary commands could be executed whenever any local user executed a program under WINE.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-1526-1 2008-03-20

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)

MySQL: privilege escalation

Package(s):MySQL CVE #(s):CVE-2007-3781 CVE-2007-5969
Created:December 11, 2007 Updated:April 7, 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

Comments (none posted)

SDL_image: buffer overflows

Package(s):SDL_image CVE #(s):CVE-2007-6697 CVE-2008-0544
Created:February 8, 2008 Updated:March 27, 2008
Description: From the Mandriva advisory: The LWZReadByte() and IMG_LoadLBM_RW() functions in SDL_image contain a boundary error that could be triggered to cause a static buffer overflow and a heap-based buffer overflow. If a user using an application linked against the SDL_image library were to open a carefully crafted GIF or IFF ILBM file, the application could crash or possibly allow for the execution of arbitrary code.
Alerts:
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:040 2007-02-07
Debian DSA-1493-1 2008-02-10
rPath rPSA-2008-0061-1 2008-02-13
Debian DSA-1493-2 2008-03-16
Ubuntu USN-595-1 2008-03-26

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)

Xorg: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):Xorg CVE #(s):CVE-2007-5760 CVE-2007-5958 CVE-2007-6427 CVE-2007-6428 CVE-2007-6429 CVE-2008-0006
Created:January 17, 2008 Updated:April 4, 2008
Description: From the X.org security advisory: Several vulnerabilities have been identified in server code of the X window system caused by lack of proper input validation on user controlled data in various parts of the software, causing various kinds of overflows.
Alerts:
SuSE SUSE-SA:2008:003 2008-01-17
Debian DSA-1466-1 2008-01-17
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0030-01 2008-01-17
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0031-01 2008-01-17
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0064-01 2008-01-17
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0029-01 2008-01-18
Ubuntu USN-571-1 2008-01-18
Debian DSA-1466-2 2008-01-19
Gentoo 200801-09 2008-01-20
Ubuntu USN-571-2 2008-01-19
Debian DSA-1466-3 2008-01-21
Fedora FEDORA-2008-0760 2008-01-22
Fedora FEDORA-2008-0794 2008-01-22
Fedora FEDORA-2008-0831 2008-01-22
Fedora FEDORA-2008-0891 2008-01-22
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:021 2008-01-23
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:022 2008-01-23
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:023 2007-01-23
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:024 2007-01-23
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:025 2007-01-23
rPath rPSA-2008-0032-1 2008-01-30
SuSE SUSE-SR:2008:003 2008-02-07
Gentoo GLSA 200801-09:03 2008-01-20
SuSE SUSE-SR:2008:008 2008-04-04

Comments (none 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)

apache: several vulnerabilities

Package(s):apache CVE #(s):CVE-2007-5000 CVE-2007-6388 CVE-2008-0005
Created:January 15, 2008 Updated:April 4, 2008
Description: A flaw was found in the mod_imap module. On sites where mod_imap was enabled and an imagemap file was publicly available, a cross-site scripting attack was possible. (CVE-2007-5000)

A flaw was found in the mod_status module. On sites where mod_status was enabled and the status pages were publicly available, a cross-site scripting attack was possible. (CVE-2007-6388)

A flaw was found in the mod_proxy_ftp module. On sites where mod_proxy_ftp was enabled and a forward proxy was configured, a cross-site scripting attack was possible against Web browsers which did not correctly derive the response character set following the rules in RFC 2616. (CVE-2008-0005)

Alerts:
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-2008:0007-01 2008-01-15
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0008-01 2008-01-15
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:014 2008-01-16
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:015 2008-01-16
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:016 2007-01-16
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0009-01 2008-01-21
Ubuntu USN-575-1 2008-02-04
Slackware SSA:2008-045-01 2008-02-15
Slackware SSA:2008-045-02 2008-02-15
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1711 2008-02-15
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1695 2008-02-15
Gentoo 200803-19 2008-03-11
SuSE SUSE-SA:2008:021 2008-04-04

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)

audacity: insecure tmpfile handling

Package(s):audacity CVE #(s):CVE-2007-6061
Created:March 3, 2008 Updated:March 21, 2008
Description: From the Gentoo advisory:

Viktor Griph reported that the "AudacityApp::OnInit()" method in file src/AudacityApp.cpp does not handle temporary files properly.

A local attacker could exploit this vulnerability to conduct symlink attacks to delete arbitrary files and directories with the privileges of the user running Audacity.

Alerts:
Gentoo 200803-03 2008-03-02
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:074 2007-03-20

Comments (none posted)

backup-manager: password disclosure

Package(s):backup-manager CVE #(s):CVE-2007-4656
Created:March 17, 2008 Updated:March 19, 2008
Description:

From the Debian advisory:

Micha Lenk discovered that backup-manager, a command-line backup tool, sends the password as a command line argument when calling a FTP client, which may allow a local attacker to read this password (which provides access to all backed-up files) from the process listing.

Alerts:
Debian DSA-1518-1 2008-03-15

Comments (none posted)

cacti: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):cacti CVE #(s):CVE-2008-0783 CVE-2008-0784 CVE-2008-0785 CVE-2008-0786
Created:February 28, 2008 Updated:May 6, 2008
Description: From the Mandriva alert: A number of vulnerabilities were found in the Cacti program, including XSS vulnerabilities, SQL injection vulnerabilities, CRLF injection vulnerabilities, and information disclosure vulnerabilities.
Alerts:
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:052 2008-02-27
SuSE SUSE-SR:2008:005 2008-03-06
Gentoo 200803-18 2008-03-10
Debian DSA-1569-1 2008-05-05
Debian DSA-1569-2 2008-05-06

Comments (none posted)

clamav: arbitrary code execution

Package(s):clamav CVE #(s):CVE-2008-0318
Created:February 13, 2008 Updated:April 18, 2008
Description:

From the CVE:

Integer overflow in libclamav in ClamAV before 0.92.1, as used in clamd, allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service and possibly execute arbitrary code via a crafted Petite packed PE file, which triggers a heap-based buffer overflow.

Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1608 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1625 2008-02-13
Debian DSA-1497-1 2008-02-16
Gentoo 200802-09 2008-02-21
SuSE SUSE-SR:2008:004 2008-02-22
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:088 2007-04-17

Comments (1 posted)

clamav: arbitrary file overwrite

Package(s):clamav CVE #(s):CVE-2007-6595
Created:February 18, 2008 Updated:April 24, 2008
Description:

From the CVE entry: ClamAV 0.92 allows local users to overwrite arbitrary files via a symlink attack on (1) temporary files in the cli_gentempfd function in libclamav/others.c or on (2) .ascii files in sigtool, when utf16-decode is enabled.

Alerts:
Debian DSA-1497-1 2008-02-16
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:088 2007-04-17
SuSE SUSE-SA:2008:024 2008-04-24

Comments (4 posted)

clamav: heap corruption

Package(s):clamav CVE #(s):CVE-2008-0728
Created:February 22, 2008 Updated:April 18, 2008
Description: From the CVE entry: libclamav/mew.c in libclamav in ClamAV before 0.92.1 has unknown impact and attack vectors that trigger "heap corruption."
Alerts:
Gentoo 200802-09 2008-02-21
SuSE SUSE-SR:2008:004 2008-02-22
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:088 2007-04-17

Comments (none posted)

cups: heap overflow

Package(s):cups CVE #(s):CVE-2008-0047
Created:March 19, 2008 Updated:April 9, 2008
Description: The cups package suffers from a heap overflow vulnerability in the cgiCompileSearch() function. This vulnerability could be exploited remotely if the print server shares printers over the network.
Alerts:
SuSE SUSE-SA:2008:015 2008-03-19
Debian DSA-1530-1 2008-03-25
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0192-01 2008-04-01
Gentoo 200804-01 2008-04-01
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:081 2007-04-02
Slackware SSA:2008-094-01 2008-04-03
Ubuntu USN-598-1 2008-04-02
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2897 2008-04-08
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2131 2008-04-08

Comments (none posted)

cups: denial of service

Package(s):cups CVE #(s):CVE-2008-0882
Created:February 22, 2008 Updated:April 3, 2008
Description: From the Red Hat advisory: A flaw was found in the way CUPS handles the addition and removal of remote shared printers via IPP. A remote attacker could send malicious UDP IPP packets causing the CUPS daemon to crash.
Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0157-01 2008-02-21
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1901 2008-02-25
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1976 2008-02-25
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:050 2008-02-26
SuSE SUSE-SA:2008:012 2008-03-06
Debian DSA-1530-1 2008-03-25
Gentoo 200804-01 2008-04-01
Ubuntu USN-598-1 2008-04-02

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: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):dovecot CVE #(s):CVE-2008-1199 CVE-2008-1218
Created:March 13, 2008 Updated:March 27, 2008
Description: From the Fedora alert:

CVE-2008-1199 If Dovecot was configured with mail_extra_groups = mail, users having shell access to IMAP server could use this flaw to read, modify or delete mails of other users stored in inbox files in /var/mail. /var/mail directory is mail-group writable and user inbox files are by default created by useradd with permission 660, <user>:mail. No mail_extra_groups is set by default, hence default Fedora configuration was not affected by this problem. If your configuration sets mail_extra_groups, see new options mail_privileged_group and mail_access_groups introduced in Dovecot 1.0.11. (mail_extra_groups is still accepted, but is deprecated now)

CVE-2008-1218 On Dovecot versions 1.0.11 and newer, it was possible to gain password-less login via passwords with tab characters, which were not filtered properly. Dovecot versions in Fedora were not affected by this unauthorized login flaw, but only by a related minor memory leak in dovecot-auth worker process.

Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2475 2008-03-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2464 2008-03-13
rPath rPSA-2008-0108-1 2008-03-12
Debian DSA-1516-1 2008-03-14
Gentoo 200803-25 2008-03-18
Ubuntu USN-593-1 2008-03-26

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)

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)

firebird: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):firebird CVE #(s):CVE-2008-0387 CVE-2008-0467
Created:March 3, 2008 Updated:March 27, 2008
Description: From the Gentoo advisory:

Firebird does not properly handle certain types of XDR requests, resulting in an integer overflow (CVE-2008-0387). Furthermore, it is vulnerable to a buffer overflow when processing usernames (CVE-2008-0467).

A remote attacker could send specially crafted XDR requests or an overly long username to the vulnerable server, possibly resulting in the remote execution of arbitrary code with the privileges of the user running the application.

Alerts:
Gentoo 200803-02 2008-03-02
Debian DSA-1529-1 2008-03-24

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-2008-0414 CVE-2008-0416 CVE-2008-0420 CVE-2008-0594
Created:February 8, 2008 Updated:March 26, 2008
Description: From the Ubuntu advisory:
Flaws were discovered in the file upload form control. A malicious website could force arbitrary files from the user's computer to be uploaded without consent. (CVE-2008-0414)

Various flaws were discovered in character encoding handling. If a user were ticked into opening a malicious web page, an attacker could perform cross-site scripting attacks. (CVE-2008-0416)

Flaws were discovered in the BMP decoder. By tricking a user into opening a specially crafted BMP file, an attacker could obtain sensitive information. (CVE-2008-0420)

Emil Ljungdahl and Lars-Olof Moilanen discovered that a web forgery warning dialog wasn't displayed under certain circumstances. A malicious website could exploit this to conduct phishing attacks against the user. (CVE-2008-0594)

Alerts:
Ubuntu USN-576-1 2008-02-08
Debian DSA-1484-1 2008-02-10
Debian DSA-1485-1 2008-02-10
Debian DSA-1489-1 2008-02-10
rPath rPSA-2008-0051-1 2008-02-08
Foresight FLEA-2008-0001-1 2008-02-11
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1435 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1535 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1669 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1459 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1435 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1535 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1435 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1535 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1435 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1535 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1435 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1535 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1435 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1535 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1435 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1535 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1435 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1535 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1435 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1535 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1435 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1535 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1435 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1535 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1435 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1535 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1435 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1535 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1435 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1535 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1535 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1535 2008-02-13
SuSE SUSE-SA:2008:008 2008-02-15
Debian DSA-1506-1 2008-02-24
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:048 2007-02-22
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0105-02 2008-02-27
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2118 2008-02-28
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2060 2008-02-28
Ubuntu USN-582-1 2008-02-29
Ubuntu USN-582-2 2008-03-06
Debian DSA-1485-2 2008-03-17
Debian DSA-1506-2 2008-03-20
Ubuntu USN-592-1 2008-03-26

Comments (none posted)

firefox: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):firefox seamonkey thunderbird CVE #(s):CVE-2008-0412 CVE-2008-0413 CVE-2008-0415 CVE-2008-0417 CVE-2008-0418 CVE-2008-0419 CVE-2008-0591 CVE-2008-0592 CVE-2008-0593
Created:February 8, 2008 Updated:April 2, 2008
Description: From the Red Hat advisory:
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-2008-0412, CVE-2008-0413, CVE-2008-0415, CVE-2008-0419)

Several flaws were found in the way Firefox displayed malformed web content. A webpage containing specially-crafted content could trick a user into surrendering sensitive information. (CVE-2008-0591, CVE-2008-0593)

A flaw was found in the way Firefox stored password data. If a user saves login information for a malicious website, it could be possible to corrupt the password database, preventing the user from properly accessing saved password data. (CVE-2008-0417)

A flaw was found in the way Firefox handles certain chrome URLs. If a user has certain extensions installed, it could allow a malicious website to steal sensitive session data. Note: this flaw does not affect a default installation of Firefox. (CVE-2008-0418)

A flaw was found in the way Firefox saves certain text files. If a website offers a file of type "plain/text", rather than "text/plain", Firefox will not show future "text/plain" content to the user in the browser, forcing them to save those files locally to view the content. (CVE-2008-0592)

Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0103-01 2008-02-07
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0104-01 2008-02-07
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0105-01 2008-02-07
Ubuntu USN-576-1 2008-02-08
Debian DSA-1484-1 2008-02-10
Debian DSA-1485-1 2008-02-10
Debian DSA-1489-1 2008-02-10
rPath rPSA-2008-0051-1 2008-02-08
Foresight FLEA-2008-0001-1 2008-02-11
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1435 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1535 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1669 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1459 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1435 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1535 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1435 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1535 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1435 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1535 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1435 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1535 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1435 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1535 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1435 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1535 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1435 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1535 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1435 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1535 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1435 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1535 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1435 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1535 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1435 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1535 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1435 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1535 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1435 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1535 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1535 2008-02-13
Fedora FEDORA-2008-1535 2008-02-13
SuSE SUSE-SA:2008:008 2008-02-15
Debian DSA-1506-1 2008-02-24
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:048 2007-02-22
Red Hat RHSA-2008:0105-02 2008-02-27
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2118 2008-02-28
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2060 2008-02-28
rPath rPSA-2008-0093-1 2008-02-29
Slackware SSA:2008-061-01 2008-03-03
Ubuntu USN-582-1 2008-02-29
Ubuntu USN-582-2 2008-03-06
Mandriva MDVSA-2008:062 2007-03-06
Debian DSA-1485-2 2008-03-17
Debian DSA-1506-2 2008-03-20
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2812 2008-04-01
Fedora FEDORA-2008-2830 2008-04-01

Comments (2 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:April 25, 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