Security

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Fighting spam in the courts

Reading legal filings has never been your editor's idea of a good time, and many of the filings which have gone his way over the last year have been less fun than usual. So it has been a bit of a relief to read complaints with titles like "Microsoft Corporation v. John Does 1-50 d/b/a Super Viagra Group." The big ISPs are figuring out that spam is costing them money; as a result, Microsoft, AOL, Earthlink, and Yahoo have filed a set of lawsuits aimed at those who, they say, have sent spam into their systems.

These suits have been trumpeted as the first application of the much-maligned U.S. "CAN-SPAM" act. The complaints (most of which can be found on FindLaw) do, indeed, cite this act, but they also bring many other counts and could easily have been filed before that act was passed. Microsoft's complaint, for example, alleges "trespass to chattels," "conversion," violation of the Washington electronic mail act, violation of the federal computer fraud and abuse act, Lanham act violations, and more. AOL's complaint brings in violations of the Virginia computer crimes act, dealing in falsified bulk email software (Virginia law, again), conspiracy to commit trespass of chattels, and more. The CAN-SPAM act, clearly, is only part of the picture.

The filings are good for publicity and as a way to look like something is being done, but it remains to be seen whether they will accomplish anything against spam. The fact that the complaints are filed against over 100 "John Does" makes one problem clear: these ISPs still do not have a clear idea of who they are fighting. They claim that, armed with subpoenas, they can follow the money trails starting with the manufacturers of the products being pitched and track down the spammers from there. Perhaps, but it would be a mistake to assume that the people involved will be easily found, or that it will be easy to prove that they, in particular, sent the messages in question.

That said, legal action is likely to be an important part of the fight against spam in the future. With luck, a squad of expensive corporate lawyers can help to push spammers further underground and make it harder to actually earn money by sending junk email. There are reasons to worry too, however; anti-spam laws are, to a great extent, being used to squelch a certain type of unpleasant speech. It is not that hard to imagine those laws being used to shut down other types of speech which powerful groups find distasteful, much like domain name laws and procedures have been used to pull the plug on consumer and satire sites. Making spammers uncomfortable is a good thing; let's just hope this effort stops there.

Comments (2 posted)

New vulnerabilities

gdk-pixbuf: buffer overflow

Package(s):	gdk-pixbuf	CVE #(s):	CAN-2004-0111
Created:	March 10, 2004	Updated:	March 16, 2004
Description:	Versions of gdk-pixbuf prior to 0.20 contain a vulnerability which can be exploited, via a malicious BMP file, to crash Evolution.
Alerts:	Mandrake MDKSA-2004:020 2004-03-10 Red Hat RHSA-2004:102-01 2004-03-10 Red Hat RHSA-2004:103-01 2004-03-10 Whitebox WBSA-2004:103-01 2004-03-15 Debian DSA-464-1 2004-03-16

Comments (none posted)

kdelibs: cookie disclosure

Package(s):	kdelibs	CVE #(s):	CAN-2003-0592
Created:	March 10, 2004	Updated:	August 24, 2004
Description:	kdelibs (and, thus, Konqueror) has a vulnerability where a hostile server can force the disclosure of cookies that should not be presented to it. KDE versions 3.1.3 and later contain a fix.
Alerts:	Debian DSA-459-1 2004-03-10 Mandrake MDKSA-2004:022 2004-03-10 Red Hat RHSA-2004:075-01 2004-03-10 Red Hat RHSA-2004:074-01 2004-03-10 Gentoo 200408-23 2004-08-24

Comments (none posted)

mozilla: multiple vulnerabilties

Package(s):	mozilla	CVE #(s):	CAN-2003-0594 CAN-2003-0564
Created:	March 10, 2004	Updated:	August 19, 2004
Description:	Mozilla 1.4 contains a few vulnerabilities, including disclosure of cookies to the wrong server, a scripting vulnerability which can allow an attacker to run arbitrary code, and an S/MIME vulnerability which can lead to remote denial of service or code execution attacks.
Alerts:	Mandrake MDKSA-2004:021 2004-03-10 Red Hat RHSA-2004:112-01 2004-03-17 Whitebox WBSA-2004:110-01 2004-03-29 Whitebox WBSA-2004:421-01 2004-08-19

Comments (none posted)

python: buffer overflow

Package(s):	python	CVE #(s):	CAN-2004-0150
Created:	March 10, 2004	Updated:	October 11, 2004
Description:	Python (versions 2.2 and 2.2.1 only) has a buffer overflow in the getaddrinfo() function which can be exploited by a malformed IPv6 address.
Alerts:	Debian DSA-458-1 2004-03-09 Mandrake MDKSA-2004:019 2004-03-09 Debian DSA-458-2 2004-08-31 Gentoo 200409-03 2004-09-02 Debian DSA-458-3 2004-10-10

Comments (none posted)

sysstat: temporary file vulnerability

Package(s):	sysstat	CVE #(s):	CAN-2004-0107 CAN-2004-0108
Created:	March 10, 2004	Updated:	October 4, 2004
Description:	The sysstat utility has a temporary file vulnerability which can be exploited by a local attacker to overwrite system files.
Alerts:	Debian DSA-460-1 2004-03-10 Red Hat RHSA-2004:093-01 2004-03-10 Red Hat RHSA-2004:053-01 2004-03-10 Whitebox WBSA-2004:053-01 2004-03-10 Trustix TSLSA-2004-0011 2004-03-16 Debian DSA-460-2 2004-04-03 Gentoo 200404-04 2004-04-06 Fedora-Legacy FLSA:1372 2004-10-03

Comments (none posted)

wu-ftpd: two vulnerabilities

Package(s):	wu-ftpd	CVE #(s):	CAN-2004-0148 CAN-2004-0185
Created:	March 9, 2004	Updated:	March 10, 2004
Description:	CAN-2004-0148 - Glenn Stewart discovered that users could bypass the directory access restrictions imposed by the restricted-gid option by changing the permissions on their home directory. On a subsequent login, when access to the user's home directory was denied, wu-ftpd would fall back to the root directory. CAN-2004-0185 - A buffer overflow existed in wu-ftpd's code which deals with S/key authentication.
Alerts:	Debian DSA-457-1 2004-03-08 Red Hat RHSA-2004:096-01 2004-03-08

Comments (none posted)

Updated vulnerabilities

CUPS: denial of service

Package(s):	CUPS	CVE #(s):	CAN-2003-0788
Created:	November 3, 2003	Updated:	March 4, 2004
Description:	Paul Mitcheson reported a situation where the CUPS Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) implementation in CUPS versions prior to 1.1.19 would get into a busy loop. This could result in a denial of service. In order to exploit this bug an attacker would need to have the ability to make a TCP connection to the IPP port (by default 631).
Alerts:	Red Hat RHSA-2003:275-01 2003-11-03 Mandrake MDKSA-2003:104 2003-11-05 Conectiva CLA-2003:779 2003-11-07 SCO Group CSSA-2004-012.0 2004-03-03

Comments (none posted)

PWLib: possible Denial of Service

Package(s):	PWLib	CVE #(s):	CAN-2004-0097
Created:	February 13, 2004	Updated:	April 9, 2004
Description:	PWLib is a cross-platform class library designed to support the OpenH323 project. OpenH323 provides an implementation of the ITU H.323 teleconferencing protocol, used by packages such as Gnome Meeting. A test suite for the H.225 protocol (part of the H.323 family) provided by the NISCC uncovered bugs in PWLib prior to version 1.6.0. An attacker could trigger these bugs by sending carefully crafted messages to an application. The effects of such an attack can vary depending on the application, but would usually result in a Denial of Service. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the name CAN-2004-0097 to this issue.
Alerts:	Red Hat RHSA-2004:048-01 2004-02-13 Red Hat RHSA-2004:047-01 2004-02-18 Whitebox WBSA-2004:047-01 2004-02-18 Debian DSA-448-1 2004-02-22 Fedora FEDORA-2004-078 2004-03-02 Mandrake MDKSA-2004:017 2004-03-03 Gentoo 200404-11 2004-04-09

Comments (none posted)

apache2: Denial of Service vulnerability

Package(s):	apache2	CVE #(s):
Created:	September 29, 2003	Updated:	March 25, 2004
Description:	A problem was discovered in Apache2 where CGI scripts that write more than 4k to the standard error stream will hang the script's execution. This problem can lead to a denial of service situation. See this bug report for additional details.
Alerts:	Mandrake MDKSA-2003:096 2003-09-26 Mandrake MDKSA-2003:096-1 2003-10-24 Netwosix NW-2004-0006 2004-03-25 Gentoo 200403-04 2004-03-22

Comments (none posted)

Filename disclosure vulnerability in fam

Package(s):	fam	CVE #(s):	CAN-2002-0875
Created:	August 19, 2002	Updated:	January 5, 2005
Description:	"fam" (file alteration monitor) watches files and directories for changes and lets interested applications know when something happens. This package has a flaw in its group handling that blocks some legitimate operations while, at the same time, exposing the names of files that should otherwise be invisible.
Alerts:	Debian DSA-154-1 2002-08-15 Red Hat RHSA-2005:005-01 2005-01-05

Comments (none posted)

fetchmail may crash on specially crafted message

Package(s):	fetchmail	CVE #(s):	CAN-2003-0792
Created:	October 16, 2003	Updated:	April 8, 2004
Description:	A bug was discovered in fetchmail 6.2.4 where a specially crafted email message can cause fetchmail to crash.
Alerts:	Mandrake MDKSA-2003:101 2003-10-16 Slackware SSA:2003-300-02 2003-10-22 SCO Group CSSA-2004-004.0 2004-02-19 Netwosix NW-2004-0002 2004-02-20 Gentoo 200403-10 2004-03-30 OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2004.012 2004-04-08

Comments (none posted)

GnuPG: ElGamal signing keys compromised

Package(s):	gnupg	CVE #(s):	CAN-2003-0971
Created:	November 28, 2003	Updated:	March 3, 2004
Description:	A severe vulnerability was discovered in GnuPG by Phong Nguyen relating to ElGamal sign+encrypt keys. This email message from Werner Koch contains more information. "Phong Nguyen identified a severe bug in the way GnuPG creates and uses ElGamal keys for signing. This is a significant security failure which can lead to a compromise of almost all ElGamal keys used for signing. Note that this is a real world vulnerability which will reveal your private key within a few seconds."
Alerts:	Mandrake MDKSA-2003:109 2003-11-28 SuSE SuSE-SA:2003:048 2003-12-03 Conectiva CLA-2003:798 2003-12-09 Red Hat RHSA-2003:390-01 2003-12-10 Red Hat RHSA-2003:395-01 2003-12-10 Fedora FEDORA-2003-025 2003-12-10 Gentoo 200312-05 2003-12-12 Debian DSA-429-1 2004-01-26 Debian DSA-429-2 2004-02-13 SCO Group CSSA-2004-009.0 2004-03-02

Comments (3 posted)

gtkhtml: malformed messages cause crash

Package(s):	gtkhtml	CVE #(s):	CAN-2003-0133 CAN-2003-0541
Created:	April 14, 2003	Updated:	April 18, 2005
Description:	GtkHTML is the HTML rendering widget used by the Evolution mail reader. GtkHTML supplied with versions of Evolution prior to 1.2.4 contain a bug when handling HTML messages. Alan Cox discovered that certain malformed messages could cause the Evolution mail component to crash.
Alerts:	Red Hat RHSA-2003:126-01 2003-04-14 Mandrake MDKSA-2003:046 2003-04-15 Red Hat RHSA-2003:264-01 2003-09-09 Conectiva CLA-2003:737 2003-09-12 Mandrake MDKSA-2003:093 2003-09-18 Debian DSA-710-1 2005-04-18

Comments (none posted)

iproute: local denial of service

Package(s):	iproute net-tools	CVE #(s):	CAN-2003-0856
Created:	November 25, 2003	Updated:	December 14, 2004
Description:	The iproute utility is susceptible to spoofed netlink messages sent by local users, with the result that denial of service attacks are possible.
Alerts:	Red Hat RHSA-2003:316-01 2003-11-24 Gentoo 200404-10 2004-04-09 Debian DSA-492-1 2004-04-18 Fedora FEDORA-2004-115 2004-05-11 Fedora FEDORA-2004-154 2004-06-03 Mandrake MDKSA-2004:148 2004-12-13

Comments (none posted)

kdepim: VCF file information reader vulnerability

Package(s):	kdepim	CVE #(s):	CAN-2003-0988
Created:	January 15, 2004	Updated:	May 26, 2004
Description:	KDE has issued a security advisory for all versions of kdepim as distributed with KDE versions 3.1.0 through 3.1.4 inclusive. A carefully crafted .VCF file potentially enables local attackers to compromise the privacy of a victim's data or execute arbitrary commands with the victim's privileges. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the name CAN-2003-0988 to this issue.
Alerts:	Red Hat RHSA-2004:006-01 2004-01-07 Mandrake MDKSA-2004:003 2004-01-14 Slackware SSA:2004-014-01 2004-01-14 Conectiva CLA-2004:810 2004-01-20 Whitebox WBSA-2004:005-01 2004-02-12 Gentoo 200404-02 2004-04-06 Fedora FEDORA-2004-133 2004-05-19

Comments (none posted)

kernel: local root exploit

Package(s):	kernel	CVE #(s):	CAN-2003-0961 CAN-2003-0985 CAN-2004-0077
Created:	February 18, 2004	Updated:	March 8, 2004
Description:	Another vulnerability has been found in the 2.4.24 and 2.6.2 mremap() system call; once again, this hole can be exploited by a local user to obtain root access. See this advisory from Paul Starzetz for details.
Alerts:	Debian DSA-440-1 2004-02-18 Debian DSA-439-1 2004-02-18 Red Hat RHSA-2004:065-01 2004-02-18 Debian DSA-438-1 2004-02-18 Slackware SSA:2004-049-01 2004-02-18 Trustix 2004-0007 2004-02-18 Debian DSA-441-1 2004-02-18 Fedora FEDORA-2004-079 2004-02-18 Red Hat RHSA-2004:069-01 2004-02-18 SuSE SuSE-SA:2004:005 2004-02-18 Fedora FEDORA-2004-080 2004-02-18 Red Hat RHSA-2004:066-01 2004-02-19 Conectiva CLA-2004:820 2004-02-20 Debian DSA-444-1 2004-02-20 Whitebox WBSA-2004:066-01 2004-02-19 Netwosix NW-2004-0003 2004-02-20 Trustix 2004-0008 2004-02-23 Mandrake MDKSA-2004:015 2004-02-24 Mandrake MDKSA-2004:015-1 2004-02-25 Immunix IMNX-2004-7+-001-01 2004-02-26 Debian DSA-450-1 2004-02-27 Debian DSA-453-1 2004-03-02 Debian DSA-454-1 2004-03-02 Fedora-Legacy FLSA:1284 2004-03-02 Debian DSA-456-1 2004-03-06 Gentoo 200403-02 2004-03-06

Comments (none posted)

kernel: local root exploit in 2.4.22

Package(s):	kernel	CVE #(s):	CAN-2003-0961
Created:	December 1, 2003	Updated:	April 5, 2004
Description:	A vulnerability was discovered in the Linux kernel versions 2.4.22 and previous. A flaw in bounds checking in the do_brk() function can allow a local attacker to gain root privileges. This vulnerability is known to be exploitable. The 2.4.23 kernel contains the fix. For more details on how this vulnerability works, see this LWN article.
Alerts:	Debian DSA-403-1 2003-12-01 Mandrake MDKSA-2003:110 2003-12-01 Trustix 2003-0046 2003-12-01 Red Hat RHSA-2003:392-00 2003-12-01 Slackware SSA:2003-336-01 2003-12-01 Fedora FEDORA-2003-026 2003-12-02 Red Hat RHSA-2003:389-01 2003-12-01 Yellow Dog YDU-20031203-1 2003-12-03 SuSE SuSE-SA:2003:049 2003-12-04 Gentoo 200312-02 2003-12-04 Conectiva CLA-2003:796 2003-12-05 Red Hat RHSA-2003:368-01 2003-12-19 Debian DSA-423-1 2004-01-15 Debian DSA-433-1 2004-02-04 Debian DSA-442-1 2004-02-19 Debian DSA-470-1 2004-04-01 Debian DSA-475-1 2004-04-05

Comments (1 posted)

kernel-utils: setuid vulnerability

Package(s):	kernel-utils	CVE #(s):	CAN-2003-0019
Created:	February 7, 2003	Updated:	January 21, 2005
Description:	The kernel-utils package contains several utilities that can be used to control the kernel or machine hardware. In Red Hat Linux 8.0 this package contains user mode linux (UML) utilities. The uml_net utility in kernel-utils packages with Red Hat Linux 8.0 was incorrectly shipped setuid root. This could allow local users to control certain network interfaces, add and remove arp entries and routes, and put interfaces in and out of promiscuous mode. All users of the kernel-utils package should update to these packages that contain a version of uml_net that is not setuid root. Alternatively, as a work-around to this vulnerability issue the following command as root: chmod -s /usr/bin/uml_net
Alerts:	Red Hat RHSA-2003:056-08 2003-02-07

Comments (none posted)

libpng, libpng3: buffer overflow

Package(s):	libpng, libpng3	CVE #(s):	CAN-2002-1363
Created:	December 19, 2002	Updated:	July 14, 2004
Description:	Glenn Randers-Pehrson discovered a problem in connection with 16-bit samples from libpng, an interface for reading and writing PNG (Portable Network Graphics) format files. The starting offsets for the loops are calculated incorrectly which causes a buffer overrun beyond the beginning of the row buffer.
Alerts:	Debian DSA-213-1 2002-12-19 Red Hat RHSA-2003:006-06 2003-01-09 SuSE SuSE-SA:2003:0004 2003-01-14 Yellow Dog YDU-20030114-2 2002-01-14 OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2003.001 2003-01-15 Mandrake MDKSA-2003:008 2003-01-20 Conectiva CLA-2003:564 2003-01-23 Red Hat RHSA-2004:249-01 2004-06-18 Fedora FEDORA-2004-173 2004-06-18 Fedora FEDORA-2004-175 2004-06-18 Fedora FEDORA-2004-174 2004-06-18 Fedora FEDORA-2004-176 2004-06-18 Whitebox WBSA-2004:249-01 2004-06-21 Mandrake MDKSA-2004:063 2004-06-29 OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2004.030 2004-07-06 Gentoo 200407-06 2004-07-08

Comments (none posted)

libtool - Insecure handling of temporary files

Package(s):	libtool	CVE #(s):
Created:	February 5, 2004	Updated:	March 8, 2004
Description:	GNU libtool consists of a set of shell scripts used to build shared libraries. Joseph S. Myers and Stefan Nordhausen independently found a vulnerability in the way the ltmain.sh script (which is part of the libtool package) creates temporary directories for its use. A local attacker could exploit this vulnerability to change/delete arbitrary files in the system on behalf of the user who is calling the script. The vulnerability has been fixed in the 1.5.2 version of libtool.
Alerts:	Conectiva CLA-2004:811 2004-02-05 OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2004.004 2004-03-08

Comments (none posted)

libxml2 - arbitrary code execution

Package(s):	libxml2	CVE #(s):	CAN-2004-0110
Created:	February 26, 2004	Updated:	July 21, 2004
Description:	Yuuichi Teranishi discovered a flaw in libxml2 versions prior to 2.6.6. When fetching a remote resource via FTP or HTTP, libxml2 uses special parsing routines. These routines can overflow a buffer if passed a very long URL. If an attacker is able to find an application using libxml2 that parses remote resources and allows them to influence the URL, then this flaw could be used to execute arbitrary code.
Alerts:	Red Hat RHSA-2004:091-01 2004-02-26 Fedora FEDORA-2004-087 2004-02-25 Red Hat RHSA-2004:090-01 2004-02-26 Whitebox WBSA-2004:090-01 2004-03-01 Red Hat RHSA-2004:091-02 2004-03-03 Mandrake MDKSA-2004:018 2004-03-03 Debian DSA-455-1 2004-03-03 Netwosix NW-2004-0004 2004-03-04 OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2004.003 2004-03-05 Trustix TSLSA-2004-0010 2004-03-05 Gentoo 200403-01 2004-03-06 Conectiva CLA-2004:836 2004-03-31 Fedora-Legacy FLSA:1324 2004-07-19

Comments (none posted)

mailman: cross-site scripting vulnerabilities

Package(s):	mailman	CVE #(s):	CAN-2003-0965 CAN-2003-0992
Created:	February 6, 2004	Updated:	March 5, 2004
Description:	Dirk Mueller discovered a cross-site scripting bug in the admin interface in versions of Mailman 2.1 before 2.1.4. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the name CAN-2003-0965 to this issue. A cross-site scripting bug in the 'create' CGI script affects versions of Mailman 2.1 before 2.1.3. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the name CAN-2003-0992 to this issue.
Alerts:	Red Hat RHSA-2004:020-01 2004-02-05 Debian DSA-436-1 2004-02-08 Debian DSA-436-2 2004-02-21 Fedora FEDORA-2004-060 2004-03-04

Comments (none posted)

mailman denial of service

Package(s):	mailman	CVE #(s):	CAN-2003-0991
Created:	February 9, 2004	Updated:	May 25, 2004
Description:	Matthew Galgoci of Red Hat discovered a Denial of Service (DoS) vulnerability in versions of Mailman prior to 2.1. An attacker could send a carefully-crafted message causing mailman to crash. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the name CAN-2003-0991 to this issue.
Alerts:	Red Hat RHSA-2004:019-01 2004-02-09 Mandrake MDKSA-2004:013 2004-02-13 Red Hat RHSA-2004:156-01 2004-04-14 Conectiva CLA-2004:842 2004-05-25

Comments (1 posted)

mc: arbitrary code execution

Package(s):	mc	CVE #(s):	CAN-2003-1023
Created:	January 16, 2004	Updated:	April 5, 2004
Description:	A vulnerability was discovered in Midnight Commander, a file manager, whereby a malicious archive (such as a .tar file) could cause arbitrary code to be executed if opened by Midnight Commander.
Alerts:	Debian DSA-424-1 2004-01-16 Red Hat RHSA-2004:034-01 2004-01-19 Mandrake MDKSA-2004:007 2004-01-26 Red Hat RHSA-2004:035-01 2004-01-19 Fedora FEDORA-2004-058 2004-02-09 Whitebox WBSA-2004:035-01 2004-02-12 SCO Group CSSA-2004-014.0 2004-03-25 Conectiva CLA-2004:833 2004-03-31 Gentoo 200403-09 2004-03-29 OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2004.009 2004-04-05

Comments (none posted)

metamail: integer and buffer overflows

Package(s):	metamail	CVE #(s):	CAN-2004-0104 CAN-2004-0105
Created:	February 18, 2004	Updated:	May 21, 2004
Description:	Versions of metamail through 2.7 contain a set of integer and buffer overflows which are remotely exploitable via a properly crafted message.
Alerts:	Red Hat RHSA-2004:073-01 2004-02-18 Slackware SSA:2004-049-02 2004-02-18 Mandrake MDKSA-2004:014 2004-02-18 Debian DSA-449-1 2004-02-24 Gentoo 200405-17 2004-05-21

Comments (none posted)

mikmod: buffer overflow

Package(s):	mikmod	CVE #(s):	CAN-2003-0427
Created:	June 16, 2003	Updated:	June 16, 2005
Description:	Ingo Saitz discovered a bug in mikmod whereby a long filename inside an archive file can overflow a buffer when the archive is being read by mikmod.
Alerts:	Debian DSA-320-1 2003-06-13 Gentoo 200307-01 2003-07-02 Fedora FEDORA-2005-404 2005-06-09 Red Hat RHSA-2005:506-01 2005-06-13 Fedora FEDORA-2005-405 2005-06-16

Comments (none posted)

mod_python: denial of service vulnerability

Package(s):	mod_python	CVE #(s):	CAN-2003-0973
Created:	January 27, 2004	Updated:	October 4, 2004
Description:	Apache's mod_python module could crash the httpd process if a specific, malformed query string was sent. The Apache Foundation has reported that mod_python may be prone to Denial of Service attacks when handling a malformed query. Mod_python 2.7.9 was released to fix the vulnerability, however, because the vulnerability has not been fully fixed, version 2.7.10 has been released. Users of mod_python 3.0.4 are not affected by this vulnerability.
Alerts:	Gentoo 200401-03 2004-01-27 Red Hat RHSA-2004:063-01 2004-02-26 Red Hat RHSA-2004:058-01 2004-02-26 Debian DSA-452-1 2004-02-29 Whitebox WBSA-2004:058-01 2004-03-01 Conectiva CLA-2004:837 2004-04-12 Fedora-Legacy FLSA:1325 2004-10-03

Comments (none posted)

mpg321: format string vulnerability

Package(s):	mpg321	CVE #(s):	CAN-2003-0969
Created:	January 6, 2004	Updated:	March 28, 2005
Description:	A vulnerability was discovered in mpg321, a command-line mp3 player, whereby user-supplied strings were passed to printf(3) unsafely. This vulnerability could be exploited by a remote attacker to overwrite memory, and possibly execute arbitrary code. In order for this vulnerability to be exploited, mpg321 would need to play a malicious mp3 file (including via HTTP streaming).
Alerts:	Debian DSA-411-1 2004-01-05 Gentoo 200503-34 2005-03-28

Comments (none posted)

mplayer: remotely exploitable buffer overflow vulnerability

Package(s):	mplayer	CVE #(s):	CAN-2003-0835
Created:	September 29, 2003	Updated:	April 6, 2004
Description:	A remotely exploitable buffer overflow vulnerability was found in MPlayer. A malicious host can craft a harmful ASX header, and trick MPlayer into executing arbitrary code upon parsing that header. Read the full advisory for details.
Alerts:	Gentoo 200309-15 2003-09-27 Mandrake MDKSA-2003:097 2003-09-30 Conectiva CLA-2003:760 2003-10-06 Gentoo 200403-13 2004-03-31 Mandrake MDKSA-2004:026 2004-04-05

Comments (none posted)

mutt: buffer overflow

Package(s):	mutt	CVE #(s):	CAN-2004-0078
Created:	February 11, 2004	Updated:	March 26, 2004
Description:	mutt suffers from a buffer overflow in its "index menu" code. This overflow can be exploited via a hostile message to crash mutt and, perhaps, execute arbitrary code. Version 1.4.2 fixes the problem; see this advisory for details.
Alerts:	Fedora FEDORA-2004-061 2004-02-11 Red Hat RHSA-2004:050-01 2004-02-11 Red Hat RHSA-2004:051-01 2004-02-11 Slackware SSA:2004-043-01 2004-02-12 Mandrake MDKSA-2004:010 2004-02-11 Whitebox WBSA-2004:050-01 2004-02-12 Trustix 2004-0006 2004-02-13 Netwosix NW-2004-0001 2004-02-16 OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2004.005 2004-03-09 SCO Group CSSA-2004-013.0 2004-03-25

Comments (none posted)

Nessus NASL scripting engine security issues

Package(s):	nessus	CVE #(s):
Created:	May 27, 2003	Updated:	August 12, 2004
Description:	Some some vulnerabilities exsist in the Nessus NASL scripting engine. To exploit these flaws, an attacker would need to have a valid Nessus account as well as the ability to upload arbitrary Nessus plugins in the Nessus server (this option is disabled by default) or he/she would need to trick a user somehow into running a specially crafted nasl script. Read the full advisory for additional information.
Alerts:	Gentoo 200305-10 2003-05-27

Comments (none posted)

netpbm: insecure temporary files

Package(s):	netpbm	CVE #(s):	CAN-2003-0924
Created:	January 19, 2004	Updated:	December 29, 2004
Description:	netpbm is graphics conversion toolkit made up of a large number of single-purpose programs. Many of these programs were found to create temporary files in an insecure manner, which could allow a local attacker to overwrite files with the privileges of the user invoking a vulnerable netpbm tool.
Alerts:	Debian DSA-426-1 2004-01-18 Red Hat RHSA-2004:031-01 2004-01-22 Fedora FEDORA-2004-068 2004-02-06 Red Hat RHSA-2004:030-01 2004-02-05 Mandrake MDKSA-2004:011 2004-02-11 Whitebox WBSA-2004:031-01 2004-02-12 Mandrake MDKSA-2004:011-1 2004-09-27 Gentoo 200410-02 2004-10-04 Conectiva CLA-2004:909 2004-12-29

Comments (1 posted)

nfs-utils xlog() off-by-one bug

Package(s):	nfs-utils	CVE #(s):	CAN-2003-0252
Created:	July 14, 2003	Updated:	March 8, 2004
Description:	Linux NFS utils package contains remotely exploitable off-by-one bug. A local or remote attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending specially crafted request to rpc.mountd daemon. See this BugTraq post for more details.
Alerts:	Red Hat RHSA-2003:206-01 2003-07-14 Debian DSA-349-1 2003-07-14 Slackware SSA:2003-195-01 2003-07-14 SuSE SuSE-SA:2003:031 2003-07-15 Immunix IMNX-2003-7+-018-01 2003-07-14 Slackware SSA:2003-195-01b 2003-07-15 Yellow Dog YDU-20030718-1 2003-07-18 Gentoo 200307-07 2003-07-19 Mandrake MDKSA-2003:076 2003-07-21 Conectiva CLA-2003:700 2003-07-22 SCO Group CSSA-2003-037.0 2003-11-17 Trustix TSLSA-2004-0009 2004-03-05

Comments (none posted)

openssh: timing attack leads to information disclosure

Package(s):	openssh	CVE #(s):	CAN-2003-0190
Created:	May 2, 2003	Updated:	November 30, 2004
Description:	From the advisory: "During a pen-test we stumbled across a nasty bug in OpenSSH-portable with PAM support enabled (via the --with-pam configure script switch). This bug allows a remote attacker to identify valid users on vulnerable systems, through a simple timing attack. The vulnerability is easy to exploit and may have high severity, if combined with poor password policies and other security problems that allow local privilege escalation."
Alerts:	Gentoo 200305-01 2002-03-05 Gentoo 200305-02 2003-05-13 Red Hat RHSA-2003:222-01 2003-07-29 OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2003.035 2003-08-06 Ubuntu USN-34-1 2004-11-30

Comments (1 posted)

perl information leak

Package(s):	perl	CVE #(s):	CAN-2003-0618
Created:	February 2, 2004	Updated:	April 21, 2004
Description:	Paul Szabo discovered a number of bugs in suidperl, a helper program to run perl scripts with setuid privileges. By exploiting these bugs, an attacker could abuse suidperl to discover information about files (such as testing for their existence and some of their permissions) that should not be accessible to unprivileged users.
Alerts:	Debian DSA-431-1 2004-02-01 Debian DSA-431-2 2004-04-16

Comments (none posted)

postfix: denial of service vulnerabilities

Package(s):	postfix	CVE #(s):	CAN-2003-0468 CAN-2003-0540
Created:	August 5, 2003	Updated:	May 27, 2004
Description:	The postfix MTA, versions through 1.1.12 (but not 2.0) is subject to two remotely exploitable denial of service vulnerabilities; see this advisory from Michal Zalewski for details.
Alerts:	Debian DSA-363-1 2003-08-03 Red Hat RHSA-2003:251-01 2003-08-04 SuSE SuSE-SA:2003:033 2003-08-04 Conectiva CLA-2003:717 2003-08-04 EnGarde ESA-20030804-019 2003-08-04 Mandrake MDKSA-2003:081 2003-08-04 Trustix 2003-0029 2003-08-04 Mandrake MDKA-2004:028 2004-05-26

Comments (none posted)

rsync - remotely exploitable heap overflow

Package(s):	rsync	CVE #(s):	CAN-2003-0962
Created:	December 4, 2003	Updated:	March 3, 2004
Description:	An advisory has gone out warning of a remotely exploitable heap overflow vulnerability in rsync versions 2.5.6 and prior. If you are running an rsync server, you will want to apply a distributor patch or upgrade to 2.5.7 in the near future.
Alerts:	Slackware SSA:2003-337-01 2003-12-03 Trustix 2003-0048 2003-12-04 SuSE SuSE-SA:2003:050 2003-12-04 OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2003.051 2003-12-04 Debian DSA-404-1 2003-12-04 EnGarde ESA-20031204-032 2003-12-04 Gentoo 200312-03 2003-12-04 Conectiva CLA-2003:794 2003-12-04 Fedora FEDORA-2003-030 2003-12-04 Red Hat RHSA-2003:398-01 2003-12-04 Red Hat RHSA-2003:399-01 2003-12-04 Mandrake MDKSA-2003:111 2003-12-04 Immunix IMNX-2003-73-001-01 2003-12-05 SCO Group CSSA-2004-010.0 2004-03-02

Comments (none posted)

screen: privilege escalation

Package(s):	screen	CVE #(s):	CAN-2003-0972
Created:	November 28, 2003	Updated:	March 3, 2004
Description:	According to this advisory a buffer overflow in GNU screen allows privilege escalation for local users. Usually screen is installed either setgid-utmp or setuid-root. It also has some potential for remote attacks or getting control of another user's screen. The problem is that you have to transfer around 2-3 gigabytes of data to user's screen to exploit this vulnerability. 4.0.1, 3.9.15 and older versions are vulnerable.
Alerts:	OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2003.050 2003-11-28 Mandrake MDKSA-2003:113 2003-12-08 Debian DSA-408-1 2004-01-05 Conectiva CLA-2004:809 2004-01-20 Fedora-Legacy FLSA:1187 2004-01-26 SCO Group CSSA-2004-011.0 2004-03-02

Comments (none posted)

File overwrite vulnerability in tar and unzip

Package(s):	tar unzip	CVE #(s):	CAN-2001-1267 CAN-2001-1268 CAN-2001-1269 CAN-2002-0399
Created:	October 1, 2002	Updated:	April 9, 2006
Description:	The tar utility does not properly filter file names containing "../", meaning that a hostile archive can, if unpacked by an unsuspecting user, overwrite any file that is writable by that user. GNU tar versions 1.13.19 and earlier are vulnerable; unzip through version 5.42 has the same vulnerability.
Alerts:	Red Hat RHSA-2002:096-24 2002-09-18 Gentoo tar-20021001 2002-10-01 Gentoo unzip-20021001 2002-10-01 EnGarde ESA-20021003-022 2002-10-03 Mandrake MDKSA-2002:065 2002-10-10 Mandrake MDKSA-2002:066 2002-10-10 Conectiva CLA-2002:538 2002-10-29 Red Hat RHSA-2006:0195-01 2006-02-21 Fedora-Legacy FLSA:183571-1 2006-04-04

Comments (1 posted)

tcpdump: flaws in the ISAKMP decoding routines

Package(s):	tcpdump	CVE #(s):	CAN-2003-0989 CAN-2004-0057 CAN-2004-0055
Created:	January 15, 2004	Updated:	April 6, 2004
Description:	George Bakos discovered flaws in the ISAKMP decoding routines of tcpdump versions prior to 3.8.1. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the name CAN-2003-0989 to this issue. Jonathan Heusser discovered two additional flaws in the ISAKMP decoding routines of tcpdump versions up to and including 3.8.1. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the name CAN-2004-0057 to this issue. Jonathan Heusser discovered a flaw in the print_attr_string function in the RADIUS decoding routines for tcpdump 3.8.1 and earlier. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the name CAN-2004-0055 to this issue. Remote attackers could potentially exploit these issues by sending carefully-crafted packets to a victim. If the victim uses tcpdump, these packets could result in a denial of service, or possibly execute arbitrary code as the 'pcap' user.
Alerts:	Red Hat RHSA-2004:007-01 2004-01-14 Red Hat RHSA-2004:008-01 2004-01-15 SuSE SuSE-SA:2004:002 2004-01-14 Trustix 2004-0004 2004-01-05 OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2004.002 2004-01-16 Debian DSA-425-1 2004-01-16 EnGarde ESA-20040119-002 2004-01-19 Mandrake MDKSA-2004:008 2004-01-26 Fedora-Legacy FLSA:1222 2004-01-31 Whitebox WBSA-2004:008-01 2004-02-12 Fedora FEDORA-2004-092 2004-03-02 SCO Group CSSA-2004-008.0 2004-03-02 Fedora FEDORA-2004-091 2004-03-04 Gentoo 200404-03 2004-03-31

Comments (none posted)

Multiple vendor telnetd vulnerability

Package(s):	telnet Telnet netkit-telnet-ssl kerberos telnetd netkit-telnet nkitb/nkitserv/telnetd krb5	CVE #(s):
Created:	May 21, 2002	Updated:	October 5, 2004
Description:	This vulnerability, originally thought to be confined to BSD-derived systems, was first covered in the July 26th Security Summary. It is now known that Linux telnet daemons are vulnerable as well.
Alerts:	SCO Group CSSA-2001-030.0 2001-08-10 Conectiva CLA-2001:413 2001-08-24 Debian DSA-075-1 2001-08-14 Debian DSA-075-2 2001-08-14 HP HPSBTL0202-023 2002-02-12 Mandrake MDKSA-2001:068 2001-08-13 Mandrake MDKSA-2001:093 2001-12-17 Progeny PROGENY-SA-2001-27 2001-08-14 Red Hat RHSA-2001:099-06 2001-08-09 Red Hat RHSA-2001:099-09 2002-02-07 Red Hat RHSA-2001:100-02 2001-08-09 Slackware sl-997726350 2001-08-09 SuSE SuSE-SA:2001:029 2001-09-03 Yellow Dog YDU-20010810-1 2001-08-10 Yellow Dog YDU-20010810-2 2001-08-10 Gentoo 200410-03 2004-10-05

Comments (none posted)

util-linux: information leak in the login program

Package(s):	util-linux	CVE #(s):	CAN-2004-0080
Created:	February 3, 2004	Updated:	April 8, 2004
Description:	The util-linux package contains a large variety of low-level system utilities that are necessary for a Linux system to function. In some situations, the login program could use a pointer that had been freed and reallocated. This could cause unintentional data leakage.
Alerts:	Red Hat RHSA-2004:056-01 2004-02-02 Whitebox WBSA-2004:056-01 2004-02-12 Fedora-Legacy FLSA:1256 2004-03-04 Gentoo 200404-06 2004-04-07 Netwosix NW-2004-0010 2004-04-08

Comments (1 posted)

xboing - buffer overflows

Package(s):	xboing	CVE #(s):	CAN-2004-0149
Created:	February 27, 2004	Updated:	March 3, 2004
Description:	Steve Kemp discovered a number of buffer overflow vulnerabilities in xboing, a game, which could be exploited by a local attacker to gain gid "games".
Alerts:	Debian DSA-451-1 2004-02-27

Comments (2 posted)

Events

Black Hat Briefings call for papers

The Black Hat Briefings will be held July 26 and 27 in Las Vegas. The call for papers has gone out, with a June 1 due date.

Full Story (comments: none)

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