Thank you for reading the Linux Advisory Watch Security Newsletter. The purpose of this document is to provide our readers with a quick summary of each week's vendor security bulletins and pointers on methods to improve the security posture of your open source system. Vulnerabilities affect nearly every vendor virtually every week, so be sure to read through to find the updates your distributor have made available.

LinuxSecurity.com Feature Extras:

Securing a Linux Web Server - With the significant prevalence of Linux web servers globally, security is often touted as a strength of the platform for such a purpose. However, a Linux based web server is only as secure as its configuration and very often many are quite vulnerable to compromise. While specific configurations vary wildly due to environments or specific use, there are various general steps that can be taken to insure basic security considerations are in place.

Password guessing with Medusa 2.0 - Medusa was created by the fine folks at foofus.net, in fact the much awaited Medusa 2.0 update was released in February of 2010. For a complete change log please visit

(Sep 29)

Kingcope discovered that the mod_sftp and mod_sftp_pam modules of proftpd, a powerful modular FTP/SFTP/FTPS server, are not properly validating input, before making pool allocations. An attacker can use this flaw to conduct denial of service attacks against the system [More...]
(Sep 27)

Several vulnerabilities have been discovered in the Linux kernel that may lead to a denial of service, information leak or privilege escalation. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project identifies the following problems: [More...]
(Sep 26)

Davfs2, a filesystem client for WebDAV, calls the function system() insecurely while is setuid root. This might allow a privilege escalation. For the oldstable distribution (squeeze), this problem has been fixed in [More...]
(Oct 4)

The Module-Signature module for Perl has insufficient path checks, allowing a remote attacker to execute arbitrary Perl code.
(Sep 27)

Multiple vulnerabilities have been found in Xen, allowing attackers on a Xen Virtual Machine to execute arbitrary code, cause Denial of Service, or gain access to data on the host.
(Sep 27)

Multiple vulnerabilities have been found in Mozilla Firefox, Thunderbird, and SeaMonkey, some of which may allow a remote user to execute arbitrary code.
(Sep 27)

Multiple vulnerabilities have been found in Squid, possibly resulting in remote Denial of Service.
(Sep 26)

A vulnerability in klibc could allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary shell code.
(Sep 26)

Multiple vulnerabilities have been found in Dropbear, the worst of which could lead to arbitrary code execution.
Mandriva: 2013:245: proftpd (Oct 3)

A vulnerability has been discovered and corrected in proftpd: Integer overflow in kbdint.c in mod_sftp in ProFTPD 1.3.4d and 1.3.5r3 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (memory consumption) via a large response count value in an authentication [More...]
Mandriva: 2013:244: davfs2 (Sep 30)

A vulnerability has been discovered and corrected in davfs2: Davfs2, a filesystem client for WebDAV, calls the function system() insecurely while is setuid root. This might allow a privilege escalation (CVE-2013-4362). [More...]
Mandriva: 2013:243: polkit (Sep 27)

Updated polkit packages fix security vulnerability: A race condition was found in the way the PolicyKit pkcheck utility checked process authorization when the process was specified by its process ID via the --process option. A local user could use this [More...]
Mandriva: 2013:242: kernel (Sep 26)

Multiple vulnerabilities has been found and corrected in the Linux kernel: Multiple array index errors in drivers/hid/hid-core.c in the Human Interface Device (HID) subsystem in the Linux kernel through 3.11 [More...]
Red Hat: 2013:1353-01: sudo: Low Advisory (Sep 30)

An updated sudo package that fixes multiple security issues and several bugs is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having low [More...]
Red Hat: 2013:1319-01: sssd: Low Advisory (Sep 30)

Updated sssd packages that fix one security issue and several bugs are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having low [More...]
Red Hat: 2013:1323-01: ccid: Low Advisory (Sep 30)

An updated ccid package that fixes one security issue and one bug is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having low [More...]
Red Hat: 2013:1310-01: samba3x: Moderate Advisory (Sep 30)

Updated samba3x packages that fix multiple security issues and several bugs are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having moderate [More...]
Red Hat: 2013:1307-01: php53: Moderate Advisory (Sep 30)

Updated php53 packages that fix multiple security issues, several bugs, and add one enhancement are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having moderate [More...]
Red Hat: 2013:1302-01: xinetd: Low Advisory (Sep 30)

An updated xinetd package that fixes one security issue and two bugs is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having low [More...]
Red Hat: 2013:1292-01: kernel: Moderate Advisory (Sep 26)

Updated kernel packages that fix multiple security issues and several bugs are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having moderate [More...]
(Sep 29)

New seamonkey packages are available for Slackware 14.0 and -current to fix security issues. [More Info...]
Ubuntu: 1986-1: Network Audio System (NAS) vulnerabilities (Oct 1)

Several security issues were fixed in Network Audio System (NAS).
Ubuntu: 1985-1: Python 3.3 vulnerabilities (Oct 1)

Several security issues were fixed in Python.
Ubuntu: 1984-1: Python 3.2 vulnerabilities (Oct 1)

Several security issues were fixed in Python.
Ubuntu: 1982-1: Python 2.6 vulnerability (Oct 1)

Fraudulent security certificates could allow sensitive information tobe exposed when accessing the Internet.
Ubuntu: 1983-1: Python 2.7 vulnerabilities (Oct 1)

Several security issues were fixed in Python.
Ubuntu: 1981-1: HPLIP vulnerabilities (Sep 30)

HPLIP could be made to overwrite files.
Ubuntu: 1976-1: Linux kernel vulnerabilities (Sep 30)

Several security issues were fixed in the kernel.
Ubuntu: 1979-1: txt2man vulnerability (Sep 30)

txt2man could be made to overwrite files.
Ubuntu: 1980-1: Vino vulnerability (Sep 30)

Vino could be made to hang if it received specially crafted networktraffic.
Ubuntu: 1978-1: libKDcraw vulnerabilities (Sep 30)

libKDcraw could be made to crash if it opened a specially crafted file.
Ubuntu: 1977-1: Linux kernel (EC2) vulnerabilities (Sep 30)

Several security issues were fixed in the kernel.
Ubuntu: 1968-1: Linux kernel vulnerabilities (Sep 27)

Several security issues were fixed in the kernel.
Ubuntu: 1975-1: Linux kernel (OMAP4) vulnerabilities (Sep 27)

Several security issues were fixed in the kernel.
Ubuntu: 1972-1: Linux kernel vulnerabilities (Sep 27)

Several security issues were fixed in the kernel.
Ubuntu: 1973-1: Linux kernel (OMAP4) vulnerabilities (Sep 27)

Several security issues were fixed in the kernel.
Ubuntu: 1974-1: Linux kernel vulnerabilities (Sep 27)

Several security issues were fixed in the kernel.
Ubuntu: 1971-1: Linux kernel (Raring HWE) vulnerabilities (Sep 27)

Several security issues were fixed in the kernel.
Ubuntu: 1970-1: Linux kernel (Quantal HWE) vulnerabilities (Sep 27)

Several security issues were fixed in the kernel.
Ubuntu: 1969-1: Linux kernel (OMAP4) vulnerabilities (Sep 27)

Several security issues were fixed in the kernel.