Source: LinuxSecurity.com Contributors - Posted by Benjamin D. Thomas
This week advisories were released for java, abiworld, cyrus, squirrelmail,
libgd1, openssl, hpsockd, policycoreutils, prelink, libselinux, udev, tcpdump,
samba, gaim, FreeBSD kernel, phpMyAdmin, libxpm4, kde, amavisd, open motif,
linux kernel, and cyrus-imapd. The distributors include Conectiva, Debian, Fedora,
Gentoo, Mandrake, Trustix, Red Hat, and SuSE.
Open Letter to Linux Security Community
Welcome to the new LinuxSecurity.com!
I must admit, I am really proud of what we have been able to accomplish over
the years. LinuxSecurity.com has grown from a small idea that a couple of security
geeks had in 1999, to a major and well respected Linux resource. With an all
new look & feel, organizational changes, security events, and additions
to our staff, we hope to better serve the Linux and open source community. Although
there are many aesthetic improvements, a major part of our development has focused
on creating a content structure and backend system that is easy to update.
Since the beginning, we have been able to maintain one of the largest, if not
the largest and most comprehensive Linux advisory archive on the Internet. Through
the years, we have scoured the net for thousands of hours to bring fresh and
relevant articles, papers, and resources to you. It wasn't easy in the beginning.
We had to create the site from scratch and build a community-wide reputation.
The site was started in 1999, the middle of the dot-com boom. Dave Wreski, a
Linux security expert and the original founder of LinuxSecurity.com had great
foresight. He envisioned the widespread use of Linux as well as many other open
source tools. Rather than companies spending thousands of dollars on proprietary
tools, he saw a world where open source would be respected and adopted because
of its flexibility and greater security through open standards and full disclosure...
Mass
deploying Osiris - Osiris is a centralized file-integrity program
that uses a client/server architecture to check for changes on a system. A central
server maintains the file-integrity database and configuration for a client
and at a specified time, sends the configuration file over to the client, runs
a scan and sends the results back to the server to compare any changes. Those
changes are then sent via email, if configured, to a system admin or group of
people. The communication is all done over an encrypted communication channel.
AIDE
and CHKROOTKIT -Network security is continuing to be a big problem
for companies and home users. The problem can be resolved with an accurate security
analysis. In this article I show how to approach security using aide and chkrootkit.
An Interview
with Gary McGraw, Co-author of Exploiting Software: How to Break Code
- Gary McGraw is perhaps best known for his groundbreaking work on securing
software, having co-authored the classic Building Secure Software (Addison-Wesley,
2002). More recently, he has co-written with Greg Hoglund a companion volume,
Exploiting Software, which details software security from the vantage point
of the other side, the attacker. He has graciously agreed to share some of his
insights with all of us at LinuxSecurity.com.
Linux Advisory Watch is
a comprehensive newsletter that outlines the security vulnerabilities that have
been announced throughout the week. It includes pointers to updated packages
and descriptions of each vulnerability.[
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Conectiva
Conectiva: java plugin vulnerability
26th, November, 2004
Jouko Pynnonen reported[2], through iDEFENSE, a vulnerability[3]
in the plugin mechanism which allows remote attackers to bypass the Java
sandbox through the use of javascript. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/106930
iDefense[3] discovered[4] a buffer overflow vulnerability[5]
in the wv library which could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code
with the privileges of the user running the vulnerable application.
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/117319
Conectiva: squirrelmail cross site scripting
vulnerability fix
2nd, December, 2004
Joost Pol noticed[2] that SquirrelMail is prone to a cross site
scripting issue in the decoding of encoded text in certain headers. SquirrelMail
correctly decodes the specially crafted header, but doesn't sanitize the
result. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/117321
Debian
Debian: libgd1 arbitrary code execution
fix
29th, November, 2004
More potential integer overflows have been found in the GD graphics
library which weren't covered by our security advisory DSA 589. They could
be exploited by a specially crafted graphic and could lead to the execution
of arbitrary code on the victim's machine. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/106931
Debian: libgd2 arbitrary code execution
fix
29th, November, 2004
More potential integer overflows have been found in the GD graphics
library which weren't covered by our security advisory DSA 589. They could
be exploited by a specially crafted graphic and could lead to the execution
of arbitrary code on the victim's machine. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/106932
Trustix developers discovered insecure temporary file creation
in a supplemental script (der_chop) of the openssl package which may allow
local users to overwrite files via a symlink attack. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/117312
Debian: hpsockd denial of service fix
3rd, December, 2004
"infamous41md" discovered a buffer overflow condition in hpsockd,
the socks server written at Hewlett-Packard. An exploit could cause the
program to crash or may have worse effect. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/117313
Fedora
Fedora: policycoreutils-1.18.1-2 update
Resend with correct id
FreeBSD: Kernel memory disclosure in
procfs and linprocfs
2nd, December, 2004
The implementation of the /proc/curproc/cmdline pseudofile in
the procfs(5) file system on FreeBSD 4.x and 5.x, and of the /proc/self/cmdline
pseudofile in the linprocfs(5) file system on FreeBSD 5.x reads a process'
argument vector from the process address space. During this operation,
a pointer was dereferenced directly without the necessary validation steps
being performed. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/117318
Gentoo
Gentoo: Sun and Blackdown Java Applet
privilege escalation
29th, November, 2004
The Java plug-in security in Sun and Blackdown Java environments
can be bypassed to access arbitrary packages, allowing untrusted Java
applets to perform unrestricted actions on the host system. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/106945
Mandrake: libxpm4 correct issues with
previous update
30th, November, 2004
The previous libxpm4 update had a linking error that resulted
in a missing s_popen symbol error running applications dependant on the
library. In addition, the file path checking in the security updates prevented
some applications, like gimp-2.0 from being able to save xpm format images.
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/106946
Several security problems have been found and addressed by the
SUSE Security Team. The following issues are present in all SUSE Linux
based products. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/117316
SuSE: cyrus-imapd remote command execution
3rd, December, 2004
Stefan Esser reported various bugs within the Cyrus IMAP Server.
These include buffer overflows and out-of-bounds memory access which could
allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary commands as root. The bugs
occur in the pre-authentication phase, therefore an update is strongly
recommended. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/117317
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