+----------------------------------------------------------------+ | LinuxSecurity.com Linux Advisory Watch | | November 21st, 2003 Volume 4, Number 46a | +----------------------------------------------------------------+ Editors: Dave Wreski Benjamin Thomas dave@private ben@private 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. This week, advisories were released for zebra, hylafax, minimalist, Glibc, XFree86, Sane, postgresql, and apache. The distributors include Conectiva, Debian, Mandrake, RedHat, SuSE, and Trustix. --- >> Free Trial SSL Certificate from Thawte << Take your first step towards giving your online business a competitive advantage. Test-drive a Thawte SSL certificate our easy online guide will show you how. Get started now: http://ads.linuxsecurity.com/cgi-bin/ad_redirect.pl?id=thawte27 --- One of the more powerful and cutting edge technologies in security today is honeypots. Those who have a need for better network monitoring and increased intrusion detection capabilities should find value in their usage. The concept of honeypots has been around for many years, but until recently they haven't had much widespread use. More recently, research has been done to precisely define what honeypots are, and the development of honeypot type classification. With community involvement, Lance Spitzner uses the following definition to define honeypots: "A honeypot is an information system resource whose value lies in unauthorized or illicit use of that resource." To the average IT person, honeypots may be somewhat confusing. How could any system value from 'unauthorized or illicit' use? Isn't it the responsibility of security professionals to ensure that there is no wrongful use to IT systems? I don't think this analogy is completely appropriate, but a honeypot is similar to a police sting operation. The name honeypot almost implies that the IT resource is 'bait' to lure unauthorized users. While this could be true, I'm not sure that it is the best way to think about honeypots. Lance's definition contains the word value. What value is there in setting up an easy target to lure unauthorized user? That's almost like buying a car and always leaving it unlocked with the keys in it, parking it by your normal car, hoping someone will steal your 'honeycar' rather than the car that you use everyday. In my opinion, that is a very expensive protection system. A better approach is to have specific goals in mind when implementing honeypots. Are you going to use this as research, simply to gain knowledge to help you better protect against the enemy, or are you a corporate user who wants to use a honeypot as a supplement to your intrusion detection system? Often, corporate IDS' have so many alerts, it is nearly impossible to sort out real events. Honeypots provide an excellent method of identifying unauthorized traffic and activity, simply because any traffic hitting a honeypot is by default unauthorized. Honeypots have many uses and should not be installed just for the 'cool' factor. If one is mis-configured and sitting on your network, it is potentially a huge security threat. To find out more, I suggest the Honeynet project: http://www.honeynet.org/ Until next time, cheers! Benjamin D. Thomas ben@private --- OpenVPN: An Introduction and Interview with Founder, James Yonan In this article, Duane Dunston gives a brief introduction to OpenVPN and interviews its founder James Yonan. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/feature_stories/feature_story-152.html -------------------------------------------------------------------- CONCERNED ABOUT THE NEXT THREAT? EnGarde is the undisputed winner! Hardened Linux Puts Hackers EnGarde! Winner of the Network Computing Editor's Choice Award, EnGarde "walked away with our Editor's Choice award thanks to the depth of its security strategy..." Find out what the other Linux vendors are not telling you. http://ads.linuxsecurity.com/cgi-bin/ad_redirect.pl?id=engarde2 -------------------------------------------------------------------- FEATURE: R00ting The Hacker Dan Verton, the author of The Hacker Diaries: Confessions of Teenage Hackers is a former intelligence officer in the U.S. Marine Corps who currently writes for Computerworld and CNN.com, covering national cyber-security issues and critical infrastructure protection. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/feature_stories/feature_story-150.html --> Take advantage of the LinuxSecurity.com Quick Reference Card! --> http://www.linuxsecurity.com/docs/QuickRefCard.pdf +---------------------------------+ | Distribution: Conectiva | ----------------------------// +---------------------------------+ 11/20/2003 - zebra Denial of service vulnerabilities Multiple denial of service vulnerabilities have been resolved. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/advisories/connectiva_advisory-3801.html +---------------------------------+ | Distribution: Debian | ----------------------------// +---------------------------------+ 11/17/2003 - hylafax Multiple format string vulnerabilities The SuSE Security Team discovered several exploitable formats string vulnerabilities in hylafax, a flexible client/server fax system, which could lead to executing arbitrary code as root on the fax server. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/advisories/debian_advisory-3793.html 11/17/2003 - minimalist Unsanitized input vulnerability A security-related problem has been discovered in minimalist, a mailing list manager, which allows a remote attacker to execute arbitrary commands. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/advisories/debian_advisory-3794.html +---------------------------------+ | Distribution: Mandrake | ----------------------------// +---------------------------------+ 11/19/2003 - Glibc Buffer overflow vulnerability A bug was discovered in the getgrouplist function in glibc that can cause a buffer overflow if the size of the group list is too small to hold all the user's groups. This overflow can cause segementation faults in various user applications, some of which may lead to additional security problems. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/advisories/mandrake_advisory-3800.html +---------------------------------+ | Distribution: Red Hat | ----------------------------// +---------------------------------+ 11/20/2003 - XFree86 Multiple integer overflows Updated XFree86 packages for Red Hat Linux 9 provide security fixes to font libraries and XDM. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/advisories/redhat_advisory-3802.html +---------------------------------+ | Distribution: SuSE | ----------------------------// +---------------------------------+ 11/18/2003 - Sane Denial of service vulnerability Several bugs in sane were fixed to avoid remote denial-of-service attacks. These attacks can even be executed if the remote attacker is not allowed to access the sane server by not listing the attackers IP in the file sane.conf. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/advisories/suse_advisory-3799.html +---------------------------------+ | Distribution: Trustix | ----------------------------// +---------------------------------+ 11/17/2003 - glibc Buffer overflow vulnerability The getgrouplist function in GNU libc allows may attackers to cause a denial of service (segmentation fault) and execute arbitrary code when a user is a member of a large number of groups, which can cause a buffer overflow. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/advisories/tawie_advisory-3789.html 11/17/2003 - postgresql Buffer overflow vulnerability Buffer overflow in to_ascii for PostgreSQL 7.2.x, and 7.3.x before 7.3.4, allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/advisories/tawie_advisory-3790.html 11/17/2003 - apache Multiple vulnerabilities Multiple stack-based buffer overflows in mod_alias and mod_rewrite have been fixed. Improper handling of CGI redirect paths has been fixed. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/advisories/tawie_advisory-3791.html 11/17/2003 - coreutils/fileutils/anonftp Integer overflow vulnerability Multiple vulnerabilities An integer overflow in ls in the fileutils or coreutils packages may allow local users to cause a denial of service or execute arbitrary code via a large -w value, which could be remotely exploited via applications that use ls, such as wu-ftpd. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/advisories/tawie_advisory-3792.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Distributed by: Guardian Digital, Inc. LinuxSecurity.com To unsubscribe email vuln-newsletter-request@private with "unsubscribe" in the subject of the message. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ - ISN is currently hosted by Attrition.org To unsubscribe email majordomo@private with 'unsubscribe isn' in the BODY of the mail.
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