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Security

Pondering the X client vulnerabilities

By Jonathan Corbet
May 27, 2013
Certain projects are known for disclosing a large number of vulnerabilities at once; such behavior is especially common in company-owned projects where fixes are released in batches. Even those projects, though, rarely turn up with 30 new CVE numbers in a single day. But, on May 23, the X.org project did exactly that when it disclosed a large number of security vulnerabilities in various X client libraries — some of which could be more than two decades old.

The vulnerabilities

The X Window System has a classic client/server architecture, with the X server providing display and input services for a range of client applications. The two sides communicate via a well-defined (if much extended) protocol that, in theory, provides for network-transparent operation. In any protocol implementation, developers must take into account the possibility that one of the participants is compromised or overtly hostile. In short, that is what did not happen in the X client libraries.

In particular, the client libraries contained many assumptions about the trustworthiness of the data coming from the X server. Keymap indexes were not checked to verify that they fell in the range of known keys. Very large buffer size values from the server could cause integer overflows on the client side; that, in turn, could lead to the allocation of undersized buffers that could subsequently be overflowed. File-processing code could be forced into unbounded recursion by hostile input. And so on. The bottom line is that an attacker who controls an X server has a long list of possible ways to compromise the clients connected to that server.

Despite the seemingly scary nature of most of these vulnerabilities, the impact on most users should be minimal. Most of the time, the user is in control of the server, which is usually running in a privileged mode. Any remote attacker who can compromise such a server will not need to be concerned with client library exploits; the game will have already been lost. The biggest threat, arguably, is attacks against setuid programs by a local user. If the user can control the server (perhaps by using one of the virtual X server applications), it may be possible to subvert a privileged program, enabling privilege escalation on the local machine. For this reason, applying the updates makes sense in many situations, but it may not be a matter of immediate urgency.

Many of these vulnerabilities have been around for a long time; the advisory states that "X.Org believes all prior versions of these libraries contain these flaws, dating back to their introduction." That introduction, for the bulk of the libraries involved, was in the 1990's. That is a long time for some (in retrospect) fairly obvious errors to go undetected in code that is this widely used.

Some thoughts

One can certainly make excuses for the developers who implemented those libraries 20 years or so ago. The net was not so hostile — or so pervasive — and it hadn't yet occurred to developers that their code might have to interact with overly hostile peers. A lot of code written in those days has needed refurbishing since. It is a bit more interesting to ponder why that refurbishing took so long to happen in this case. X has long inspired fears of security issues, after all. But, traditionally, those fears have been centered around the server, since that is where the privilege lies. If you operate under the assumption that the server is the line of defense, there is little reason to be concerned about the prospect of the server attacking its clients. It undoubtedly seemed better to focus on reinforcing the server itself.

Even so, one might think that somebody would have gotten around to looking at the X library code before Ilja van Sprundel took on the task in 2013. After all, if vulnerable code exists, somebody, somewhere will figure out a way to exploit it, and attackers have no qualms about looking for problems in ancient code. The X libraries are widely used and, for better or worse, they do often get linked into privileged programs that, arguably, should not be mixing interface and privilege in this way. It seems fairly likely that at least some of these vulnerabilities have been known to attackers for some time.

Speaking of review

As Al Viro has pointed out, the security updates caused some problems of their own due to bugs that would have been caught in a proper review process. Given the age and impact of the vulnerabilities, it arguably would have been better to skip the embargo process and post the fixes publicly before shipping them. After all, as Al notes, unreviewed "security" fixes could be a way to slip new vulnerabilities into a system.

In the free software community, we tend to take pride in our review processes which, we hope, keep bugs out of our code and vulnerabilities out of our system. In this case, though, it is now clear that some of our most widely used library code has not seen a serious review pass for a long time. Recent kernel vulnerabilities, too, have shown that our code is not as well reviewed as we might like to think. Often, it seems, the black hats are scrutinizing our code more closely than our developers and maintainers are.

Fixing this will not be easy. Deep code review has always been in short supply in our community, and for easily understandable reasons: the work is tedious, painstaking, and often unrewarding. Developers with the skill to perform this kind of review tend to be happier when they are writing code of their own. Getting these developers to volunteer more of their time for code review is always going to be an uphill battle.

The various companies working in this area could help the situation by paying for more security review work. There are some signs that more of this is happening than in the past, but this, too, has tended to be a hard sell. Most companies sponsor development work to help ensure that their own needs are adequately met by the project(s) in question. General security work does not add features or enable more hardware; the rewards from doing this work may seem nebulous at best. So most companies, especially if they do not feel threatened by the current level of security in our code, feel that security work is something they can leave to others.

So we will probably continue to muddle along with code that contains a variety of vulnerabilities, both old and new. Most of the time, it works well enough — at least, as far as we know. And on that cheery note, your editor has to run; there's a whole set of new security updates to apply.

Comments (66 posted)

Brief items

Security quotes of the week

With a guarantee of secure Internet access points, opposition groups would be able to link their terrestrial and wireless networks with those of like-minded groups. This would enable them to reach deeper into the country, giving broad sections of the Syrian populace Internet access. And because the United States would be able to monitor those networks, we could make sure that moderate opposition elements would be the primary beneficiaries.
The New York Times puts out a call for a "cyberattack" for Syria

You can trade a little security for a bit of convenience. Then sacrifice some more security for some extra convenience. Then buy even more convenience at expense of security. There’s nothing particularly bad in this tradeoff in non-mission critical applications, but where should it stop? Apparently, Apple decided to maintain its image as being more of a “user-friendly” rather than “secure” company.

In its current implementation, Apple’s two-factor authentication does not prevent anyone from restoring an iOS backup onto a new (not trusted) device. In addition, and this is much more of an issue, Apple’s implementation does not apply to iCloud backups, allowing anyone and everyone knowing the user’s Apple ID and password to download and access information stored in the iCloud.

Vladimir Katalov of ElcomSoft finds some dubious Apple security decisions

For any given politician, the implications of these four reasons are straightforward. Overestimating the threat is better than underestimating it. Doing something about the threat is better than doing nothing. Doing something that is explicitly reactive is better than being proactive. (If you're proactive and you're wrong, you've wasted money. If you're proactive and you're right but no longer in power, whoever is in power is going to get the credit for what you did.) Visible is better than invisible. Creating something new is better than fixing something old.

Those last two maxims are why it's better for a politician to fund a terrorist fusion center than to pay for more Arabic translators for the National Security Agency. No one's going to see the additional appropriation in the NSA's secret budget. On the other hand, a high-tech computerized fusion center is going to make front page news, even if it doesn't actually do anything useful.

Bruce Schneier

Comments (none posted)

Numerous security issues in X Window System clients

X.Org has disclosed a long list of vulnerabilities that have been fixed in the X Window System client libraries; most of them expose clients to attacks by a hostile server. "Most of the time X clients & servers are run by the same user, with the server more privileged from the clients, so this is not a problem, but there are scenarios in which a privileged client can be connected to an unprivileged server, for instance, connecting a setuid X client (such as a screen lock program) to a virtual X server (such as Xvfb or Xephyr) which the user has modified to return invalid data, potentially allowing the user to escalate their privileges." There are 30 CVE numbers assigned to these vulnerabilities; expect the distributor updates to start flowing shortly.

Full Story (comments: 55)

Security issue in livecd-tools causes password issue in Fedora cloud images

A security issue has been identified in the tool used by the Fedora Project to create cloud images. "Images generated by this tool, including Fedora Project “official” AMIs (Amazon Machine Images), AMIs whose heritage can be traced to official Fedora AMIs, as well as some images using the AMI format in non-Amazon clouds, are affected, as described below." The flaw has been assigned CVE-2013-2069.

Full Story (comments: none)

Attack wave on Ruby on Rails (The H)

The H reports increasing attempts to compromise servers via a security hole in Ruby on Rails. "On his blog, security expert Jeff Jarmoc reports that the criminals are trying to exploit one of the vulnerabilities described by CVE identifier 2013-0156. Although the holes were closed back in January, more than enough servers on the net are probably still running an obsolete version of Ruby." The current versions of Ruby on Rails are 3.2.13, 3.1.12 and 2.3.18.

Comments (none posted)

Google: Disclosure timeline for vulnerabilities under active attack

Google has announced that it will be disclosing information on actively-exploited vulnerabilities after seven days. "Seven days is an aggressive timeline and may be too short for some vendors to update their products, but it should be enough time to publish advice about possible mitigations, such as temporarily disabling a service, restricting access, or contacting the vendor for more information. As a result, after 7 days have elapsed without a patch or advisory, we will support researchers making details available so that users can take steps to protect themselves."

Comments (2 posted)

New vulnerabilities

chromium: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):chromium-browser CVE #(s):CVE-2013-2837 CVE-2013-2838 CVE-2013-2839 CVE-2013-2840 CVE-2013-2841 CVE-2013-2842 CVE-2013-2843 CVE-2013-2844 CVE-2013-2845 CVE-2013-2846 CVE-2013-2847 CVE-2013-2848 CVE-2013-2849
Created:May 29, 2013 Updated:July 15, 2013
Description: From the Debian advisory:

CVE-2013-2837: Use-after-free vulnerability in the SVG implementation allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service or possibly have unspecified other impact via unknown vectors.

CVE-2013-2838: Google V8, as used in Chromium before 27.0.1453.93, allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (out-of-bounds read) via unspecified vectors.

CVE-2013-2839: Chromium before 27.0.1453.93 does not properly perform a cast of an unspecified variable during handling of clipboard data, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service or possibly have other impact via unknown vectors.

CVE-2013-2840: Use-after-free vulnerability in the media loader in Chromium before 27.0.1453.93 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service or possibly have unspecified other impact via unknown vectors, a different vulnerability than CVE-2013-2846.

CVE-2013-2841: Use-after-free vulnerability in Chromium before 27.0.1453.93 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service or possibly have unspecified other impact via vectors related to the handling of Pepper resources.

CVE-2013-2842: Use-after-free vulnerability in Chromium before 27.0.1453.93 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service or possibly have unspecified other impact via vectors related to the handling of widgets.

CVE-2013-2843: Use-after-free vulnerability in Chromium before 27.0.1453.93 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service or possibly have unspecified other impact via vectors related to the handling of speech data.

CVE-2013-2844: Use-after-free vulnerability in the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) implementation in Chromium before 27.0.1453.93 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service or possibly have unspecified other impact via vectors related to style resolution.

CVE-2013-2845: The Web Audio implementation in Google Chrome before 27.0.1453.93 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (memory corruption) or possibly have unspecified other impact via unknown vectors.

CVE-2013-2846: Use-after-free vulnerability in the media loader in Google Chrome before 27.0.1453.93 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service or possibly have unspecified other impact via unknown vectors, a different vulnerability than CVE-2013-2840.

CVE-2013-2847: Race condition in the workers implementation in Google Chrome before 27.0.1453.93 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (use-after-free and application crash) or possibly have unspecified other impact via unknown vectors.

CVE-2013-2848: The XSS Auditor in Google Chrome before 27.0.1453.93 might allow remote attackers to obtain sensitive information via unspecified vectors.

CVE-2013-2849: Multiple cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities in Google Chrome before 27.0.1453.93 allow user-assisted remote attackers to inject arbitrary web script or HTML via vectors involving a (1) drag-and-drop or (2) copy-and-paste operation.

Alerts:
Debian DSA-2695-1 2013-05-29
Mageia MGASA-2013-0194 2013-07-01
openSUSE openSUSE-SU-2013:1200-1 2013-07-15
openSUSE openSUSE-SU-2013:1194-1 2013-07-15

Comments (none posted)

FlightGear: code execution

Package(s):FlightGear CVE #(s):
Created:May 29, 2013 Updated:June 7, 2013
Description: From the FlightGear blog:

FlightGear generates a remote format string vulnerability that could crash the application or potentially execute arbitrary code under certain conditions.

Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2013-8703 2013-05-29
Fedora FEDORA-2013-8721 2013-05-29
Mageia MGASA-2013-0164 2013-06-06

Comments (none posted)

gnutls: denial of service

Package(s):gnutls26 CVE #(s):CVE-2013-2116
Created:May 30, 2013 Updated:July 5, 2013
Description: From the Debian advisory:

It was discovered that a malicious client could crash a GNUTLS server and vice versa, by sending TLS records encrypted with a block cipher which contain invalid padding.

Alerts:
Debian DSA-2697-1 2013-05-29
Ubuntu USN-1843-1 2013-05-29
Red Hat RHSA-2013:0883-01 2013-05-30
CentOS CESA-2013:0883 2013-05-30
Mandriva MDVSA-2013:171 2013-05-30
Oracle ELSA-2013-0883 2013-05-30
Oracle ELSA-2013-0883 2013-05-30
Scientific Linux SL-gnut-20130530 2013-05-30
Fedora FEDORA-2013-9783 2013-06-11
Fedora FEDORA-2013-9774 2013-06-11
Fedora FEDORA-2013-9792 2013-06-11
Fedora FEDORA-2013-9799 2013-06-11
SUSE SUSE-SU-2013:1060-1 2013-06-20
SUSE SUSE-SU-2013:1060-2 2013-07-04

Comments (none posted)

kernel: information leak

Package(s):linux CVE #(s):CVE-2013-3226
Created:May 24, 2013 Updated:May 30, 2013
Description: From the CVE entry:

The sco_sock_recvmsg function in net/bluetooth/sco.c in the Linux kernel before 3.9-rc7 does not initialize a certain length variable, which allows local users to obtain sensitive information from kernel stack memory via a crafted recvmsg or recvfrom system call.

Alerts:
Ubuntu USN-1837-1 2013-05-24

Comments (none posted)

kvm guest image: no root password

Package(s):kvm guest image CVE #(s):CVE-2013-2069
Created:May 24, 2013 Updated:June 11, 2013
Description: From the Red Hat advisory:

It was discovered that when no 'rootpw' command was specified in a Kickstart file, the image creator tools gave the root user an empty password rather than leaving the password locked, which could allow a local user to gain access to the root account.

Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2013:0849-01 2013-05-23
Fedora FEDORA-2013-9708 2013-06-07
Fedora FEDORA-2013-9111 2013-06-11

Comments (2 posted)

moodle: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):moodle CVE #(s):CVE-2013-2079 CVE-2013-2080 CVE-2013-2081 CVE-2013-2082 CVE-2013-2083
Created:May 29, 2013 Updated:June 7, 2013
Description: From the CVE entries:

mod/assign/locallib.php in the assignment module in Moodle 2.3.x before 2.3.7 and 2.4.x before 2.4.4 does not consider capability requirements during the processing of ZIP assignment-archive download (aka downloadall) requests, which allows remote authenticated users to read other users' assignments by leveraging the student role. (CVE-2013-2079)

The core_grade component in Moodle through 2.2.10, 2.3.x before 2.3.7, and 2.4.x before 2.4.4 does not properly consider the existence of hidden grades, which allows remote authenticated users to obtain sensitive information by leveraging the student role and reading the Gradebook Overview report. (CVE-2013-2080)

Moodle through 2.1.10, 2.2.x before 2.2.10, 2.3.x before 2.3.7, and 2.4.x before 2.4.4 does not consider "don't send" attributes during hub registration, which allows remote hubs to obtain sensitive site information by reading form data. (CVE-2013-2081)

Moodle through 2.1.10, 2.2.x before 2.2.10, 2.3.x before 2.3.7, and 2.4.x before 2.4.4 does not enforce capability requirements for reading blog comments, which allows remote attackers to obtain sensitive information via a crafted request. (CVE-2013-2082)

The MoodleQuickForm class in lib/formslib.php in Moodle through 2.1.10, 2.2.x before 2.2.10, 2.3.x before 2.3.7, and 2.4.x before 2.4.4 does not properly handle a certain array-element syntax, which allows remote attackers to bypass intended form-data filtering via a crafted request. (CVE-2013-2083)

Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2013-8702 2013-05-29
Fedora FEDORA-2013-8692 2013-05-29
Mageia MGASA-2013-0162 2013-06-06

Comments (none posted)

nginx: denial of service and information disclosure

Package(s):nginx CVE #(s):CVE-2013-2070
Created:May 23, 2013 Updated:July 8, 2013
Description: The nginx web server suffers from a vulnerability that can lead to denial of service or information disclosure problems when the proxy_pass option is used with an untrusted upstream server. See this advisory for more information.
Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2013-8182 2013-05-23
Mageia MGASA-2013-0160 2013-06-06
openSUSE openSUSE-SU-2013:1015-1 2013-06-14
Debian DSA-2721-1 2013-07-07

Comments (none posted)

otrs2: privilege escalation

Package(s):otrs2 CVE #(s):CVE-2013-3551
Created:May 29, 2013 Updated:May 30, 2013
Description: From the Debian advisory:

A vulnerability has been discovered in the Open Ticket Request System, which can be exploited by malicious users to disclose potentially sensitive information. An attacker with a valid agent login could manipulate URLs in the ticket split mechanism to see contents of tickets and they are not permitted to see.

Alerts:
Debian DSA-2696-1 2013-05-29
Mageia MGASA-2013-0196 2013-07-01
Mandriva MDVSA-2013:188 2013-07-02
openSUSE openSUSE-SU-2013:1338-1 2013-08-14

Comments (none posted)

owncloud: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):owncloud CVE #(s):CVE-2013-2045 CVE-2013-2046 CVE-2013-2039 CVE-2013-2085 CVE-2013-2040 CVE-2013-2041 CVE-2013-2042 CVE-2013-2044 CVE-2013-2047 CVE-2013-2043 CVE-2013-2048 CVE-2013-2089 CVE-2013-2086 CVE-2013-2049
Created:May 28, 2013 Updated:June 24, 2013
Description: From the Mageia advisory:

ownCloud before 5.0.6 does not neutralize special elements that are passed to the SQL query in lib/db.php which therefore allows an authenticated attacker to execute arbitrary SQL commands (CVE-2013-2045).

ownCloud before 5.0.6 and 4.5.11 does not neutralize special elements that are passed to the SQL query in lib/bookmarks.php which therefore allows an authenticated attacker to execute arbitrary SQL commands (CVE-2013-2046).

Multiple directory traversal vulnerabilities in (1) apps/files_trashbin/index.php via the "dir" GET parameter and (2) lib/files/view.php via undefined vectors in all ownCloud versions prior to 5.0.6 and other versions before 4.0.15, allow authenticated remote attackers to get access to arbitrary local files (CVE-2013-2039, CVE-2013-2085).

Cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities in multiple files inside the media application via multiple unspecified vectors in all ownCloud versions prior to 5.0.6 and other versions before 4.0.15 allows authenticated remote attackers to inject arbitrary web script or HTML (CVE-2013-2040).

Cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities in (1) apps/bookmarks/ajax/editBookmark.php via the "tag" GET parameter (CVE-2013-2041) and in (2) apps/files/js/files.js via the "dir" GET parameter to apps/files/ajax/newfile.php in ownCloud 5.0.x before 5.0.6 allows authenticated remote attackers to inject arbitrary web script or HTML (CVE-2013-2041).

Cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities in (1) apps/bookmarks/ajax/addBookmark.php via the "url" GET parameter and in (2) apps/bookmarks/ajax/editBookmark.php via the "url" POST parameter in ownCloud 5.0.x before 5.0.6 allows authenticated remote attackers to inject arbitrary web script or HTML (CVE-2013-2042).

Open redirect vulnerability in index.php (aka the Login Page) in ownCloud before 5.0.6 allows remote attackers to redirect users to arbitrary web sites and conduct phishing attacks via a URL in the redirect_url parameter (CVE-2013-2044).

Index.php (aka the login page) contains a form that does not disable the autocomplete setting for the password parameter, which makes it easier for local users or physically proximate attackers to obtain the password from web browsers that support autocomplete (CVE-2013-2047).

Due to not properly checking the ownership of an calendar, an authenticated attacker is able to download calendars of other users via the "calendar_id" GET parameter to /apps/calendar/ajax/events.php. Note: Successful exploitation of this privilege escalation requires the "calendar" app to be enabled (enabled by default) (CVE-2013-2043).

Due to an insufficient permission check, an authenticated attacker is able to execute API commands as administrator. Additionally, an unauthenticated attacker could abuse this flaw as a cross-site request forgery vulnerability (CVE-2013-2048).

Incomplete blacklist vulnerability in ownCloud before 5.0.6 allows authenticated remote attackers to execute arbitrary PHP code by uploading a crafted file and accessing an uploaded PHP file. Note: Successful exploitation requires that the /data/ directory is stored inside the webroot and a webserver that interprets .htaccess files (e.g. Apache) (CVE-2013-2089).

The configuration loader in ownCloud 5.0.x before 5.0.6 includes private data such as CSRF tokens in a JavaScript file, which allows remote attackers to obtain sensitive information (CVE-2013-2086).

Alerts:
Mageia MGASA-2013-0154 2013-05-25
Fedora FEDORA-2013-10440 2013-06-24

Comments (1 posted)

pmount: should be built with PIE flags

Package(s):pmount CVE #(s):
Created:May 30, 2013 Updated:May 30, 2013
Description: From the Red Hat bugzilla:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Guidelines#PIE says that "you MUST enable the PIE compiler flags if your package has suid binaries...".

However, currently pmount is not being built with PIE flags. This is a clear violation of the packaging guidelines.

Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2013-8801 2013-05-30
Fedora FEDORA-2013-8789 2013-05-30

Comments (none posted)

python-backports-ssl_match_hostname: denial of service

Package(s):python-backports-ssl_match_hostname CVE #(s):CVE-2013-2098
Created:May 30, 2013 Updated:May 30, 2013
Description: From the Red Hat bugzilla:

A denial of service flaw was found in the way python-backports-ssl_match_hostname, an implementation that brings the ssl.match_hostname() function from Python 3.2 to users of earlier versions of Python, performed matching of the certificate's name in the case it contained many '*' wildcard characters. A remote attacker, able to obtain valid certificate with its name containing a lot of '*' wildcard characters, could use this flaw to cause denial of service (excessive CPU time consumption) by issuing request to validate that certificate for / in an application using the python-backports-ssl_match_hostname functionality.

See the upstream bug report for additional information.

Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2013-8694 2013-05-30
Fedora FEDORA-2013-8737 2013-05-30

Comments (none posted)

request-tracker: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):request-tracker CVE #(s):CVE-2012-4733 CVE-2013-3368 CVE-2013-3369 CVE-2013-3370 CVE-2013-3371 CVE-2013-3372 CVE-2013-3373 CVE-2013-3374
Created:May 23, 2013 Updated:May 30, 2013
Description: The request-tracker trouble ticket system suffers from a number of vulnerabilities that can be exploited for authentication bypass, file overwrite, cross-site scripting, HTTP header injection, session hijacking, and "negative side effects."
Alerts:
Debian DSA-2671-1 2013-05-22

Comments (none posted)

socat: denial of service

Package(s):socat CVE #(s):CVE-2013-3571
Created:May 29, 2013 Updated:June 11, 2013
Description: From the Mandriva advisory:

Under certain circumstances an FD leak occurs and can be misused for denial of service attacks against socat running in server mode.

Alerts:
Mandriva MDVSA-2013:169 2013-05-29
Mandriva MDVSA-2013:170 2013-05-29
Mageia MGASA-2013-0159 2013-06-06
Fedora FEDORA-2013-9504 2013-06-11
Fedora FEDORA-2013-9505 2013-06-11

Comments (none posted)

spip: privilege escalation

Package(s):spip CVE #(s):
Created:May 28, 2013 Updated:May 30, 2013
Description: From the Debian advisory:

A privilege escalation vulnerability has been found in SPIP, a website engine for publishing, which allows anyone to take control of the website.

Alerts:
Debian DSA-2694-1 2013-05-26

Comments (none posted)

spnavcfg: should be built with PIE flags

Package(s):spnavcfg CVE #(s):
Created:May 30, 2013 Updated:May 30, 2013
Description: From the Red Hat bugzilla:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Guidelines#PIE says that "you MUST enable the PIE compiler flags if your package has suid binaries...".

However, currently spnavcfg is not being built with PIE flags. This is a clear violation of the packaging guidelines.

Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2013-8794 2013-05-30
Fedora FEDORA-2013-8786 2013-05-30

Comments (none posted)

SUSE Manager: authentication checking problem

Package(s):SUSE Manager CVE #(s):CVE-2013-2056
Created:May 30, 2013 Updated:May 30, 2013
Description: From the SUSE advisory:

spacewalk-backend has been updated to fix an authentication checking problem. (bnc#819365, CVE-2013-2056)

Alerts:
SUSE SUSE-SU-2013:0841-1 2013-05-28

Comments (none posted)

tomcat: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):tomcat6 CVE #(s):CVE-2013-1976 CVE-2013-2051
Created:May 29, 2013 Updated:May 30, 2013
Description: From the Red Hat advisory:

A flaw was found in the way the tomcat6 init script handled the tomcat6-initd.log log file. A malicious web application deployed on Tomcat could use this flaw to perform a symbolic link attack to change the ownership of an arbitrary system file to that of the tomcat user, allowing them to escalate their privileges to root. (CVE-2013-1976)

Note: With this update, tomcat6-initd.log has been moved from /var/log/tomcat6/ to the /var/log/ directory.

It was found that the RHSA-2013:0623 update did not correctly fix CVE-2012-5887, a weakness in the Tomcat DIGEST authentication implementation. A remote attacker could use this flaw to perform replay attacks in some circumstances. Additionally, this problem also prevented users from being able to authenticate using DIGEST authentication. (CVE-2013-2051)

Alerts:
Red Hat RHSA-2013:0869-01 2013-05-28
Red Hat RHSA-2013:0870-01 2013-05-28
CentOS CESA-2013:0870 2013-05-28
Scientific Linux SL-tomc-20130528 2013-05-28
Scientific Linux SL-tomc-20130528 2013-05-28
CentOS CESA-2013:0869 2013-05-29
Oracle ELSA-2013-0869 2013-05-28
Oracle ELSA-2013-0870 2013-05-28
openSUSE openSUSE-SU-2013:1306-1 2013-08-07
openSUSE openSUSE-SU-2013:1307-1 2013-08-07
openSUSE openSUSE-SU-2013:1411-1 2013-09-08

Comments (none posted)

tomcat: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):tomcat6, tomcat7 CVE #(s):CVE-2012-3544 CVE-2013-2067
Created:May 29, 2013 Updated:August 7, 2013
Description: From the Ubuntu advisory:

It was discovered that Tomcat incorrectly handled certain requests submitted using chunked transfer encoding. A remote attacker could use this flaw to cause the Tomcat server to stop responding, resulting in a denial of service. This issue only affected Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. (CVE-2012-3544)

It was discovered that Tomcat incorrectly handled certain authentication requests. A remote attacker could possibly use this flaw to inject a request that would get executed with a victim's credentials. This issue only affected Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 12.10. (CVE-2013-2067)

Alerts:
Ubuntu USN-1841-1 2013-05-28
Red Hat RHSA-2013:0964-01 2013-06-20
CentOS CESA-2013:0964 2013-06-20
Oracle ELSA-2013-0964 2013-06-20
Scientific Linux SL-tomc-20130620 2013-06-20
Debian DSA-2725-1 2013-07-18
openSUSE openSUSE-SU-2013:1307-1 2013-08-07
openSUSE openSUSE-SU-2013:1411-1 2013-09-08

Comments (none posted)

varnish: should be built with PIE flags

Package(s):varnish CVE #(s):
Created:May 29, 2013 Updated:June 27, 2013
Description: From the Red Hat bugzilla:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Guidelines#PIE says that "you MUST enable the PIE compiler flags if your package is long running ...".

However, currently varnish is not being built with PIE flags. This is a clear violation of the packaging guidelines.

Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2013-8377 2013-05-29
Fedora FEDORA-2013-8381 2013-06-27

Comments (none posted)

X.Org: many, many vulnerabilities

Package(s):X.Org CVE #(s):CVE-2013-1981 CVE-2013-1982 CVE-2013-1983 CVE-2013-1984 CVE-2013-1985 CVE-2013-2062 CVE-2013-1986 CVE-2013-1987 CVE-2013-1988 CVE-2013-2063 CVE-2013-1989 CVE-2013-1990 CVE-2013-1991 CVE-2013-1992 CVE-2013-2064 CVE-2013-1993 CVE-2013-1994 CVE-2013-1995 CVE-2013-1996 CVE-2013-1997 CVE-2013-1998 CVE-2013-2066 CVE-2013-1999 CVE-2013-2000 CVE-2013-2001 CVE-2013-2002 CVE-2013-1981 CVE-2013-2003 CVE-2013-2004 CVE-2013-2005
Created:May 23, 2013 Updated:July 18, 2013
Description: X.Org has disclosed a long list of vulnerabilities that have been fixed in the X Window System client libraries; most of them expose clients to attacks by a hostile server. "Most of the time X clients & servers are run by the same user, with the server more privileged from the clients, so this is not a problem, but there are scenarios in which a privileged client can be connected to an unprivileged server, for instance, connecting a setuid X client (such as a screen lock program) to a virtual X server (such as Xvfb or Xephyr) which the user has modified to return invalid data, potentially allowing the user to escalate their privileges." See the advisory for details.
Alerts:
Debian DSA-2673-1 2013-05-23
Debian DSA-2675-1 2013-05-23
Debian DSA-2674-1 2013-05-23
Debian DSA-2676-1 2013-05-23
Debian DSA-2677-1 2013-05-23
Debian DSA-2678-1 2013-05-23
Debian DSA-2679-1 2013-05-23
Debian DSA-2680-1 2013-05-23
Debian DSA-2681-1 2013-05-23
Debian DSA-2682-1 2013-05-23
Debian DSA-2683-1 2013-05-23
Debian DSA-2684-1 2013-05-23
Debian DSA-2685-1 2013-05-23
Debian DSA-2686-1 2013-05-23
Debian DSA-2687-1 2013-05-23
Debian DSA-2688-1 2013-05-23
Debian DSA-2689-1 2013-05-23
Debian DSA-2690-1 2013-05-23
Debian DSA-2691-1 2013-05-23
Debian DSA-2692-1 2013-05-23
Debian DSA-2675-2 2013-05-24
Debian DSA-2693-1 2013-05-24
Fedora FEDORA-2013-9151 2013-05-28
Fedora FEDORA-2013-9114 2013-06-02
Fedora FEDORA-2013-9138 2013-06-02
Fedora FEDORA-2013-9162 2013-06-03
Fedora FEDORA-2013-9107 2013-06-03
Fedora FEDORA-2013-9166 2013-06-03
Fedora FEDORA-2013-9141 2013-06-03
Fedora FEDORA-2013-9108 2013-06-03
Fedora FEDORA-2013-9117 2013-06-03
Fedora FEDORA-2013-9120 2013-06-03
Fedora FEDORA-2013-9137 2013-06-03
Fedora FEDORA-2013-9135 2013-06-03
Fedora FEDORA-2013-9115 2013-06-03
Fedora FEDORA-2013-9140 2013-06-03
Red Hat RHSA-2013:0897-01 2013-06-03
Red Hat RHSA-2013:0898-01 2013-06-03
Scientific Linux SL-mesa-20130603 2013-06-03
Scientific Linux SL-mesa-20130603 2013-06-03
CentOS CESA-2013:0897 2013-06-03
CentOS CESA-2013:0898 2013-06-03
Oracle ELSA-2013-0897 2013-06-03
Oracle ELSA-2013-0898 2013-06-03
Fedora FEDORA-2013-9156 2013-06-06
Fedora FEDORA-2013-9147 2013-06-06
Fedora FEDORA-2013-9146 2013-06-06
Fedora FEDORA-2013-9155 2013-06-06
Fedora FEDORA-2013-9188 2013-06-06
Fedora FEDORA-2013-9177 2013-06-06
openSUSE openSUSE-SU-2013:0865-1 2013-06-06
Ubuntu USN-1852-1 2013-06-05
Ubuntu USN-1853-1 2013-06-05
Ubuntu USN-1854-1 2013-06-05
Ubuntu USN-1855-1 2013-06-05
Ubuntu USN-1856-1 2013-06-05
Ubuntu USN-1857-1 2013-06-05
Ubuntu USN-1858-1 2013-06-05
Ubuntu USN-1860-1 2013-06-05
Ubuntu USN-1861-1 2013-06-05
Ubuntu USN-1862-1 2013-06-05
Ubuntu USN-1863-1 2013-06-05
Ubuntu USN-1864-1 2013-06-05
Ubuntu USN-1865-1 2013-06-05
Ubuntu USN-1866-1 2013-06-05
Ubuntu USN-1867-1 2013-06-05
Ubuntu USN-1868-1 2013-06-05
Ubuntu USN-1869-1 2013-06-05
Ubuntu USN-1870-1 2013-06-05
Ubuntu USN-1859-1 2013-06-05
Ubuntu USN-1871-1 2013-06-10
openSUSE openSUSE-SU-2013:1007-1 2013-06-14
openSUSE openSUSE-SU-2013:1009-1 2013-06-14
openSUSE openSUSE-SU-2013:1014-1 2013-06-14
openSUSE openSUSE-SU-2013:1008-1 2013-06-14
openSUSE openSUSE-SU-2013:1010-1 2013-06-14
openSUSE openSUSE-SU-2013:1025-1 2013-06-17
openSUSE openSUSE-SU-2013:1026-1 2013-06-17
openSUSE openSUSE-SU-2013:1027-1 2013-06-17
openSUSE openSUSE-SU-2013:1028-1 2013-06-17
openSUSE openSUSE-SU-2013:1029-1 2013-06-17
openSUSE openSUSE-SU-2013:1030-1 2013-06-17
openSUSE openSUSE-SU-2013:1031-1 2013-06-17
openSUSE openSUSE-SU-2013:1032-1 2013-06-17
openSUSE openSUSE-SU-2013:1033-1 2013-06-17
openSUSE openSUSE-SU-2013:1034-1 2013-06-17
openSUSE openSUSE-SU-2013:1041-1 2013-06-19
openSUSE openSUSE-SU-2013:1046-1 2013-06-19
openSUSE openSUSE-SU-2013:1047-1 2013-06-19
openSUSE openSUSE-SU-2013:1011-1 2013-06-14
Ubuntu USN-1888-1 2013-06-20
Mageia MGASA-2013-0186 2013-06-26
Mageia MGASA-2013-0190 2013-06-26
Mandriva MDVSA-2013:182 2013-06-27
Mandriva MDVSA-2013:181 2013-06-27
Fedora FEDORA-2013-11734 2013-07-08
Fedora FEDORA-2013-12083 2013-07-11
Fedora FEDORA-2013-12593 2013-07-18

Comments (none posted)

xen: possible privilege escalation

Package(s):xen CVE #(s):CVE-2013-2072
Created:May 28, 2013 Updated:May 30, 2013
Description: From the Red Hat bugzilla:

The Python bindings for the xc_vcpu_setaffinity call do not properly check their inputs. Systems which allow untrusted administrators to configure guest vcpu affinity may be exploited to trigger a buffer overrun and corrupt memory.

An attacker who is able to configure a specific vcpu affinity via a toolstack which uses the Python bindings is able to exploit this issue.

Exploiting this issue leads to memory corruption which may result in a DoS against the system by crashing the toolstack. The possibility of code execution (privilege escalation) has not been ruled out.

The xend toolstack passes a cpumap to this function without sanitization. xend allows the cpumap to be configured via the guest configuration file or the SXP/XenAPI interface. Normally these interfaces are not considered safe to expose to non-trusted parties. However systems which attempt to allow guest administrator control of VCPU affinity in a safe way via xend may expose this issue.

Alerts:
Fedora FEDORA-2013-8590 2013-05-27
Fedora FEDORA-2013-8571 2013-05-27
SUSE SUSE-SU-2013:1075-1 2013-06-25
Mageia MGASA-2013-0197 2013-07-01
openSUSE openSUSE-SU-2013:1392-1 2013-08-30
openSUSE openSUSE-SU-2013:1404-1 2013-09-04

Comments (none posted)

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