SuSE Linux Advisory: radiusd-cistron

SuSE Security Announcement

Content of this advisory:

1. security vulnerability resolved: handling too large NAS numbers
   problem description, discussion, solution and upgrade
   information
2. pending vulnerabilities, solutions, workarounds:
   • lprng
   • frox
   • poster
   • ghostscript-library
3. standard appendix (further information)

1) problem description, brief discussion, solution, upgrade
information

The package radiusd-cistron is an implementation of the RADIUS
protocol. Unfortunately the RADIUS server handles too large NAS
numbers not correctly. This leads to overwriting internal memory of
the server process and may be abused to gain remote access to the
system the RADIUS server is running on.

There is no temporary workaround known.

Please download the update package for your distribution and
verify its integrity by the methods listed in section 3) of this
announcement. Then, install the package using the command “rpm -Fhv
file.rpm” to apply the update.
Our maintenance customers are being notified individually. The
packages are being offered to install from the maintenance web.

Please note, missing packages will be published as soon as
possible.

Intel i386 Platform:

SuSE-8.0:

ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/8.0/n2/radiusd-cistron-1.6.6-88.i386.rpm
e61fb299edfb092f24b3e455256cf262
patch rpm(s):

ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/8.0/n2/radiusd-cistron-1.6.6-88.i386.patch.rpm
d323307d4bc4c0e4dc0bcef3f848b91f
source rpm(s):

ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/8.0/zq1/radiusd-cistron-1.6.6-88.src.rpm
fc7718319972625612292798092d9a8b

SuSE-7.3:

ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/7.3/n3/radiusd-cistron-1.6.4-182.i386.rpm
ee949e18ef02e87dffc4b5ea8d5d5ec5
source rpm(s):

ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/7.3/zq1/radiusd-cistron-1.6.4-182.src.rpm
f4f87aab549967c0d4c216c8d2e312a1

SuSE-7.2:

ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/7.2/n3/radiusd-cistron-1.6.4-182.i386.rpm
e5a20985f79c887739ce0b83539c347b
source rpm(s):

ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/7.2/zq1/radiusd-cistron-1.6.4-182.src.rpm
f5f73b9e9c3e5d338bfddd1a6b2b14d8

Sparc Platform:

SuSE-7.3:

ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/sparc/update/7.3/n3/radiusd-cistron-1.6.4-70.sparc.rpm
7318cc63ec3c29618b81ae6c8eb29fc8
source rpm(s):

ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/sparc/update/7.3/zq1/radiusd-cistron-1.6.4-70.src.rpm
0212fba5fd8d4ff3e9afe4a8a8802655

PPC Power PC Platform:

SuSE-7.3:

ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/ppc/update/7.3/n3/radiusd-cistron-1.6.4-108.ppc.rpm
30f9920f2a8d2db0e8eb2a0439d61118
source rpm(s):

ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/ppc/update/7.3/zq1/radiusd-cistron-1.6.4-108.src.rpm
8133911f08442832c383000cb65e70ca

2) Pending vulnerabilities in SuSE Distributions and
Workarounds:

• lprng A race condition in psbanner was fixed that can be abused
  by local users to overwrite file owned by daemon:lp. New packages
  are available on out FTP servers.
• frox The init script of frox handled tmp file in an insecure
  manner. This behavior can be exploited by local users. New packages
  are available on out FTP servers.
• poster A possible buffer overflow due to usage of gets() was
  fixed which could have been exploited by malicious input data to
  execute code under the user id of the user running poster. New
  packages are available on out FTP servers.
• ghostscript-library Malicious PostScript[tm] files could
  execute shell commands even if the ghostscript interpreter was
  invoked with the -dSAFER flag.

3) standard appendix: authenticity verification, additional
information

• Package authenticity verification:

SuSE update packages are available on many mirror ftp servers
all over the world. While this service is being considered valuable
and important to the free and open source software community, many
users wish to be sure about the origin of the package and its
content before installing the package. There are two verification
methods that can be used independently from each other to prove the
authenticity of a downloaded file or rpm package:

1. md5sums as provided in the (cryptographically signed)
   announcement.
2. using the internal gpg signatures of the rpm package.
3. execute the command md5sum <name-of-the-file.rpm> after
   you downloaded the file from a SuSE ftp server or its mirrors.
   Then, compare the resulting md5sum with the one that is listed in
   the announcement. Since the announcement containing the checksums
   is cryptographically signed (usually using the key security@suse.de), the checksums show
   proof of the authenticity of the package. We disrecommend to
   subscribe to security lists which cause the email message
   containing the announcement to be modified so that the signature
   does not match after transport through the mailing list software.
   Downsides: You must be able to verify the authenticity of the
   announcement in the first place. If RPM packages are being rebuilt
   and a new version of a package is published on the ftp server, all
   md5 sums for the files are useless.
4. rpm package signatures provide an easy way to verify the
   authenticity of an rpm package. Use the command rpm -v –checksig
   <file.rpm> to verify the signature of the package, where
   <file.rpm> is the filename of the rpm package that you have
   downloaded. Of course, package authenticity verification can only
   target an un-installed rpm package file. Prerequisites:
   1. gpg is installed
   2. The package is signed using a certain key. The public part of
      this key must be installed by the gpg program in the directory
      ~/.gnupg/ under the user’s home directory who performs the
      signature verification (usually root). You can import the key that
      is used by SuSE in rpm packages for SuSE Linux by saving this
      announcement to a file (“announcement.txt”) and running the command
      (do “su -” to be root): gpg –batch; gpg < announcement.txt |
      gpg –import SuSE Linux distributions version 7.1 and thereafter
      install the key “build@suse.de”
      upon installation or upgrade, provided that the package gpg is
      installed. The file containing the public key is placed at the
      top-level directory of the first CD (pubring.gpg) and at ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/pubring.gpg-build.suse.de
      .

• SuSE runs two security mailing lists to which any interested
  party may subscribe:

  suse-security@suse.com

  • general/linux/SuSE security discussion. All SuSE security
    announcements are sent to this list. To subscribe, send an email
    to
    <suse-security-subscribe@suse.com>.

  suse-security-announce@suse.com

  • SuSE’s announce-only mailing list. Only SuSE’s security
    announcements are sent to this list. To subscribe, send an email
    to
    <suse-security-announce-subscribe@suse.com>.

For general information or the frequently asked questions (faq)
send mail to:

<suse-security-info@suse.com>
or
<suse-security-faq@suse.com>
respectively.

SuSE’s security contact is <security@suse.com> or
<security@suse.de>. The
<security@suse.de>
public key is listed below.

The information in this advisory may be distributed or
reproduced, provided that the advisory is not modified in any way.
In particular, it is desired that the clear-text signature shows
proof of the authenticity of the text.
SuSE Linux AG makes no warranties of any kind whatsoever with
respect to the information contained in this security advisory.