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Linux Advisory Watch: August 5th 2005
Source: LinuxSecurity.com Contributors - Posted by Benjamin D. Thomas
This week, advisories were released for gaim, gopher, pdns, apt- catcher, ethereal,
im-sdk, selinux-policy-targeted, gamin, pam, netpbm, mkinitrd, kde, arts, NetworkManager,
labraw, ckermit, httpd, gphoto, coreutils, iiimf, yum, gimp, redhead, zlib,
fetchmail, sandbox prsotext, proftpd, nbsmtp, dump, and SquirrelMail. The distributors
include Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, and Red Hat.
Internet
Productivity Suite: Open Source Security - Trust Internet Productivity
Suite's open source architecture to give you the best security and productivity
applications available. Collaborating with thousands of developers, Guardian Digital
security engineers implement the most technologically advanced ideas and methods
into their design.
Network Intrusion Prevention Systems – When They’re Valuable, and When
They’re Not and When They’re Not, Part II By: Daniel Miessler
The true benefit of network IPS lies in what it can do for companies
that can’t keep their systems patched. This may sound negative, but
it’s almost as if the request for NIPS technology is analogous to the
requestor admitting that they cannot stay on top of system
administration.
For anyone willing to make this admission, however, the benefits of
network IPS are quite significant. Consider a medium to large sized
company where upper management doesn’t see the need for additional
(see enough) systems and/or security administrators. (This shouldn’t
require much imagination, by the way).
In an environment like this, vulnerabilities are likely to go
unpatched for weeks, months, or even years – even in the Internet-
facing areas. Many things can lead to machines not getting patched
in these sorts of companies – developers claiming that the main
bread-winning app will break if the patches are applied, administrator
fear of being the cause of downtime, apathy, stupidity – take your
pick.
The point is, a strategically-placed network IPS – say in front of
the Internet-facing environment – can do something absolutely magical
for an systems/security staff -- it can buy them time. Consider a
site passing a ton of traffic into their DMZ via multiple protocols
to dozens or hundreds of machines, and let’s say several of the
applications being interfaced with have known vulnerabilities. If
the person in charge knows that they lack the ability to patch
all the vulnerable systems (inexcusable, I agree), then the NIPS
system can effectively serve as a multi-patch gateway.
If the NIPS product has a signature for 34 of the 42 exploits that
could potentially root 180 machines, then putting a network IPS at
the bottleneck becomes an alternative to 1. getting cracked, and
2. patching. Make no mistake, though – patching is the better
solution, but I recognize that there are sometimes circumstances
that prevent good admins from doing their jobs. There are also
situations where someone who knows the risks lacks the funding
to bring admins aboard that can help them keep their systems in
top shape. For either of these cases, network IPS seems like an
acceptable evil.
Linux File
& Directory Permissions Mistakes - One common mistake Linux administrators
make is having file and directory permissions that are far too liberal and
allow access beyond that which is needed for proper system operations. A full
explanation of unix file permissions is beyond the scope of this article,
so I'll assume you are familiar with the usage of such tools as chmod, chown,
and chgrp. If you'd like a refresher, one is available right here on linuxsecurity.com.
Introduction:
Buffer Overflow Vulnerabilities - Buffer overflows are a leading type
of security vulnerability. This paper explains what a buffer overflow is,
how it can be exploited, and what countermeasures can be taken to prevent
the use of buffer overflow vulnerabilities.
Getting
to Know Linux Security: File Permissions - Welcome to the first
tutorial in the 'Getting to Know Linux Security' series. The topic explored
is Linux file permissions. It offers an easy to follow explanation of how
to read permissions, and how to set them using chmod. This guide is intended
for users new to Linux security, therefore very simple. If the feedback is
good, I'll consider creating more complex guides for advanced users. Please
let us know what you think and how these can be improved.
Take advantage of our Linux Security discussion
list! This mailing list is for general security-related questions and comments.
To subscribe send an e-mail to security-discuss-request@linuxsecurity.com
with "subscribe" as the subject.
Thank you for reading the LinuxSecurity.com
weekly security newsletter. The purpose of this document is to provide our readers
with a quick summary of each week's most relevant Linux security headline.
This should fix the problem where monitoring desktop files works
initially but sometimes fails after a while. This is a safe update from
0.1.1-1.FC3
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/119955
Fedora Core 4 Update: gamin-0.1.1-3.FC4
29th, July, 2005
This should fix the problem where monitoring desktop files works
initially but sometimes fails after a while. This is a safe update from
0.1.1-1.FC4
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/119956
This update should fix the issue a number of people saw after
the recent kernel update where various modules would fail to load during
boot, making systems unbootable. After updating this package, remove,
and reinstall the recent kernel update, and the initrd will be recreated
correctly.
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/119961
To reduce the risk of future vulnerabilities in Ethereal, the
ethereal and tethereal programs in this update have been compiled as Position
Independant Executables (PIE).
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/120018
Fedora Core 4 Update: ethereal-0.10.12-1.FC4.2
3rd, August, 2005
To reduce the risk of future vulnerabilities in Ethereal, the
ethereal and tethereal programs in this update have been compiled as Position
Independant Executables (PIE).
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/120019
This update should fix a inverted case where readahead would
be triggered on boxes that have less than 384MB of memory, and would not
occur if the box had more than 384MB of memory.
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/120023
Several vulnerabilities in the Mozilla Suite allow attacks ranging
from the execution of javascript code with elevated privileges to inormation
leakage.
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/119949
Gentoo: Clam AntiVirus Integer overflows
29th, July, 2005
Clam AntiVirus is vulnerable to integer overflows when handling
several file formats, potentially resulting in the execution of arbitrary
code.
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/119950
Under specific circumstances, ProFTPD is vulnerable to format
string vulnerabilities, potentially resulting in the execution of arbitrary
code.
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/119996
Gentoo: ProFTPD Format string vulnerabilities
1st, August, 2005
Under specific circumstances, ProFTPD is vulnerable to format
string vulnerabilities, potentially resulting in the execution of arbitrary
code.
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/119997
Updated dump packages that address two security issues are now
available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1. This update has been rated
as having low security impact by the Red Hat Security Response Team.
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/120016
RedHat: Moderate: SquirrelMail security
update
3rd, August, 2005
An updated squirrelmail package that fixes two security issues
is now available. This update has been rated as having moderate security
impact by the Red Hat Security Response T am.
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/120017
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