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| LinuxSecurity.com Linux Advisory Watch |
| June 27th, 2002 Volume 4, Number 25a |
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Editors: Dave Wreski Benjamin Thomas
daveat_private benat_private
Linux Advisoiry 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.
This week, advisories were released for buzilla, ethereal, tcptraceroute,
Netscape, ypserv, XFree86, xpdf, orville-write, eldav, xbl, webfs, osh,
and foomatic. The distributors include Conectiva, Debian, Mandrake,
RedHat, TurboLinux, and YellowDog. Like most weeks, the more proactive
vendors released several new advisories and others submitted advisories
for older issues. Overall, this week has not been very active.
I wanted to take a moment to thank the readers for the wonderful feedback
that we received. If you missed last week's Advisory Watch, I discussed
Gartner's latest report that suggests IDS technology will be obsolete by
2005. Although I find this report very interesting, I did not expect the
amount of feedback that I received. Most people agreed with my conclusion
that a majority of all system vulnerabilities could be alleviated if
administrators would simply patch his/her system quickly.
An insightful reader by the name of Jeremy quickly wrote, "Hear hear!
But you can't really blame the sysadmins." He continued to discuss how
the inability to maintain systems is not the fault of the administrator.
He pointed out that the burden ultimately falls on upper management.
System administrators only do what they are told to do. Adequate funding
and support is necessary to maintain a secure and stable system.
Jeff Cours, wrote the following:
I think the fundamental problem is that software engineering is still a
very young field of engineering. I run a Linux box at home. Because I'm
not a full time administrator and don't have time to keep track of
vulnerabilities as they come up, I use Red Hat Network. Even then, I am
constantly surprised at the number and frequency of updates that come
down the pipe. The fact that my system needs so much maintenance is, I
think, a sign that we don't yet know how to engineer software with the
same level of reliability that we can engineer, say, a bridge.
Here, as I see them, are some of the open issues
in software engineering:
1. Gotos, Pointers and Threads
Gotos, pointers, and threads are all paradigms that have the same
underlying problem of unpredictability. Gotos can transfer control to a
huge range of places within the program. Pointers allow data access to a
huge range of places. And threads allow an enormous number of possible
orders of execution. (Exceptions and interrupts are similar to threads
in this respect, but they're a little less extreme.) All three paradigms
tremendously increase the number of cases the engineer has to analyze to
make sure the code properly handles them. Structured programming sharply
reduced the number of gotos, but pointers and threads are still in
widespread use. I think we'll either need new paradigms that are as
useful as threads and pointers but don't introduce as many cases to
analyze, like structured programming did for gotos, or we'll need more
powerful analysis techniques.
2. Fault Propagation
The cables that hold up the Golden Gate Bridge are made of multiple
strands of wire. One reason for that design choice is that, if a single
strand breaks, the break is not likely to affect neighboring strands.
Unfortunately, we don't yet know how to do that same thing with
software. A bug in one part of the code might stay local (say, just
affecting the output of a print statement) or its effects might
propagate and cause the whole application, or in some cases the whole
operating system, to crash. As far as I know, fault propagation in
software is still an area of active research.
3. Predictability
When civil engineers build a bridge, they have a good idea before they
build it how much wind or how strong an earthquake it can withstand, how
much load it will bear, and how much traffic can go across it. Software
engineering hasn't yet reached that point. We've made a great start:
quality assurance techniques can say roughly how many bugs remain in a
given release, and complexity analysis helps us choose one algorithm
over another, but we don't yet have analysis tools that will let us
accurately predict how reliable a program will be, how fast it will run,
how well it will handle unusual inputs, or how long it will take to
write it.
I don't mean to say that software engineers are slacking. On the
contrary, we've made tremendous progress, but we've had only 50 or 60
years to work on the problem. It would be interesting to survey the more
mature fields of engineering and see how long it took them to get to
that state. I wouldn't be surprised if it takes 100-150 years and a few
bridge collapses (or equivalent) for a field of engineering to mature,
which would mean we should see the number of security patches start to
drop off somewhere in the second half of this century.
In the meantime, you're right, we can expect to have to patch our
systems regularly. Here, I think systems like Red Hat Network and
Debian's package management have a lot to offer: they recognize that
human nature is much harder to change than technology, so they make it
as easy as possible to find out that an update needs to happen and to
apply it. Yes, exhorting sysadmins to patch their systems is also
important, but it seems to me that it's only one small piece of a much
larger issue.
Jeff made several very good points. I particularly like his analogy
comparing software engineering to conventional engineering projects. Also
this week, I spoke with a security consultant from one of the Big 5
Accounting firms. I asked him what his opinion was on the Gartner report.
He replied by stating that he did not believe IDS would be dead by 2005,
but only IDS as we know it today. He pointed out that IDS technology will
get more sophisticated, but there will still be a need for it. He had a
hard time agreeing that they will be obsolete. What do you think? I tend
to agree. I see the technology getting better, but I don't see it going
away. Perhaps the real issue here is that people are now beginning to
realize that an IDS is not an all-in-one solution. It is merely a single
tool in an entire tool chest.
Remember Ye Olde Security Wisdom, "Security Is Not a Product; It's a
Process" (Schneier, Crypto-Gram: December 15 1999)
Everyone wish me luck; I'm getting married this Saturday!
Take care,
Benjamin D. Thomas
benat_private
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LINSECURITY.COM FEATURE:
Intrusion Detection Systems: An Introduction
By: Alberto Gonzalez
Intrusion Detection is the process and methodology of inspecting data for
malicious, inaccurate or anomalous activity. At the most basic levels
there are two forms of Intrusion Detection Systems that you will
encounter: Host and Network based.
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/feature_stories/feature_story-143.html
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| Distribution: Conectiva | ----------------------------//
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6/20/2003 - buzilla
vulnerabilities
This update fixes several problems with the bugzilla package
shipped with Conectiva Linux 9
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/advisories/connectiva_advisory-3378.html
6/20/2003 - 'BitchX' remote vulnerabilities
vulnerabilities
This update fixes two remote vulnerabilities in Bitchx
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/advisories/connectiva_advisory-3379.html
6/20/2003 - 'netpbm' math overflow vulnerabilities
vulnerabilities
Alan Cox and Al Viro discovered[1] several "math overflow"
vulnerabilities in netpbm versions <= 9.20
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/advisories/connectiva_advisory-3380.html
6/20/2003 - 'apache 2' vulnerabiltiies
vulnerabilities
This update addresses two security vulnerabilities which have been
fixed in the recently released[2] 2.0.46 version
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/advisories/connectiva_advisory-3381.html
6/25/2003 - ethereal
multiple vulnerabilities
This update announcement addresses several vulnerabilities in
ethereal versions <= 0.9.12.
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/advisories/connectiva_advisory-3388.html
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| Distribution: Debian | ----------------------------//
+---------------------------------+
6/20/2003 - 'orville-write' buffer overflows
multiple vulnerabilities
Orville Write, a replacement for the standard write(1) command,
contains a number of buffer overflows. These could be exploited
to gain either gid tty or root privileges, depending on the
configuration selected when the package is installed.
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/advisories/debian_advisory-3382.html
6/20/2003 - 'eldav' temp file vulnerabilities
multiple vulnerabilities
eldav, a WebDAV client for Emacs, creates temporary files without
taking appropriate security precautions. This vulnerability could
be exploited by a local user to create or overwrite files with the
privileges of the user running emacs and eldav.
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/advisories/debian_advisory-3383.html
6/20/2003 - 'xbl' buffer overflow
multiple vulnerabilities
Steve Kemp discovered several buffer overflows in xbl, a game,
which can be triggered by long command line arguments. This
vulnerability could be exploited by a local attacker to gain gid
'games'.
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/advisories/debian_advisory-3384.html
6/20/2003 - 'webfs' buffer overflow
multiple vulnerabilities
webfs, a lightweight HTTP server for static content, contains a
buffer overflow whereby a long Request-URI in an HTTP request
could cause arbitrary code to be executed.
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/advisories/debian_advisory-3385.html
6/20/2003 - 'osh' buffer overflows
multiple vulnerabilities
Steve Kemp discovered that osh, a shell intended to restrict the
actions of the user, contains two buffer overflows, in processing
environment variables and file redirections. These
vulnerabilities could be used to execute arbitrary code,
overriding any restrictions placed on the shell.
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/advisories/debian_advisory-3386.html
6/23/2003 - tcptraceroute
root privilege vulnerability
tcptraceroute is a setuid-root program which drops root privileges
after obtaining a file descriptor used for raw packet capture.
However, it did not fully relinquish all privileges, and in the
event of an exploitable vulnerability, root privileges could be
regained.
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/advisories/debian_advisory-3389.html
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| Distribution: Mandrake | ----------------------------//
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6/25/2003 - ethereal
arbitrary code execution vulnerability
A number of string handling bugs were found in the packet
dissectors in ethereal that can be exploited using specially
crafted packets to cause ethereal to consume excessive amounts of
memory, crash, or even execute arbitray code.
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/advisories/mandrake_advisory-3390.html
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| Distribution: RedHat | ----------------------------//
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6/20/2003 - Netscape
Multiple vulnerabilities
A number of string handling bugs were found in the packet
dissectors in ethereal that can be exploited using specially
crafted packets to cause ethereal to consume excessive amounts of
memory, crash, or even execute arbitray code.
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/advisories/redhat_advisory-3387.html
6/25/2003 - ypserv
denial of service vulnerability
A vulnerability has been discovered in the ypserv NIS server prior
to version 2.7.
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/advisories/redhat_advisory-3391.html
6/25/2003 - XFree86
multiple vulnerabilities
There are multiple vulnerabilities in XFree86.
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/advisories/redhat_advisory-3392.html
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| Distribution: TurboLinux | ----------------------------//
+---------------------------------+
6/24/2003 - xpdf
arbitrary command execution vulnerability
If a victim clicks on a hyperlink contained within a malicious PDF
file, an attacker may be able to execute arbitrary commands with
the privileges of the victim.
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/advisories/turbolinux_advisory-3393.html
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| Distribution: YellowDog | ----------------------------//
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6/25/2003 - foomatic
multiple vulnerabilities
There are multiple vulnerabilities in the foomatic package.
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/advisories/yellowdog_advisory-3394.html
6/25/2003 - xpdf
arbitrary command execution vulnerability
Martyn Gilmore discovered a flaw in various PDF viewers and
readers. An attacker can embed malicious external-type hyperlinks
that if activated or followed by a victim can execute arbitrary
shell commands.
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/advisories/yellowdog_advisory-3395.html
6/25/2003 - hanterm-xf arbitrary command execution vulnerability
arbitrary command execution vulnerability
An attacker can craft an escape sequence that sets the window
title of a victim using Hangul Terminal to an arbitrary command
and then report it to the command line.
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/advisories/yellowdog_advisory-3396.html
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