SuSE Security Announcement: cups

Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 15:12:06 +0100
From: Sebastian Krahmer krahmer@SUSE.DE
To: BUGTRAQ@SECURITYFOCUS.COM
Subject: SuSE Security Announcement: cups

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                        SuSE Security Announcement

        Package:                cups
        Announcement-ID:        SuSE-SA:2001:05
        Date:                   Monday, March  5th, 2001 13:10:13 MET
        Affected SuSE versions: 7.1
        Vulnerability Type:     local/remote root compromise
        Severity (1-10):        5
        SuSE default package:   no
        Other affected systems: All UN*X-systems using cups < 1.1.6.

    Content of this advisory:
        1) security vulnerability resolved: cups
           problem description, discussion, solution and upgrade information
        2) pending vulnerabilities, solutions, workarounds
        3) standard appendix (further information)

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

CUPS is an implementation of the Internet Printing Protocol
(IPP) and is used as an alternative to the lpr and LPRng packages.
The CUPS package aims to be a comprehensive printing solution for
UN*X-systems. In SuSE-7.1 distribution, the cups package is not
used by any configuration utilities unless the admin has decided to
configure the package manually.

The cups package has been introduced in the SuSE-7.1
distribution; enhanced support for future releases of the SuSE
Linux distribution is planned.

A SuSE-internal security audit conducted by Sebastian Krahmer
and Thomas Biege revealed several overflows as well as insecure
file handling. These bugs have been fixed by adding length-checks
and securing the file-access.

For a temporary workaround, remove the suid-bit from the
‘lppasswd’ program.

Make sure nobody from outside your network can access the
CUPS-server running on port 631. Allowing access to this port from
outside is a bad idea regardless whether or not the used version is
vulnerable.

No remote-exploits are known yet.

Download the update package from locations desribed below and
install the package with the command `rpm -Uhv file.rpm’. The
md5sum for each file is in the line below. You can verify the
integrity of the rpm files using the command `rpm –checksig
–nogpg file.rpm’, independently from the md5 signatures below.

i386 Intel Platform:

SuSE-7.1

ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/7.1/d3/cups-devel-1.1.6-13.i386.rpm

23c6484952ab0c1de81e2db38bcd3afc SuSE-7.1

ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/7.1/n2/cups-1.1.6-13.i386.rpm

812e0c47dcfe508eb9e8ccb38165b6d7
source rpm:

ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/7.1/zq1/cups-1.1.6-13.src.rpm

204cea2ad6a61293c191e70a2cacdc82

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2) Pending vulnerabilities in SuSE Distributions and
Workarounds:

Effective Monday, March 19 2001, five weeks after the release of
the new SuSE-7.1 distribution, SuSE will discontinue support for
the SuSE-linux distributions SuSE-6.0 SuSE-6.1 and SuSE-6.2.

SuSE puts much effort into adding security improvements
(patches) to the software instead of publishing a new version; the
same program with a fix for a specific problem promises to work
just as reliable as the original version from the distribution,
whereas new versions introduce new functionality which changes the
behaviour. In some cases however, especially if the security leak
is based on problematic design decisions or when the fix(es) are
fairly large, the only reasonable fix for a security problem is to
update to a newer version of the software. These newer versions
tend to become incompatible with our older distribution releases
because of missing features in the operating system environment.
This forces us to focus on the distributions of a newer release
date.

    The remaining distributions
     SuSE-6.3,
     SuSE-6.4,
     SuSE-7.0 and
     SuSE-7.1

for the Intel i386, AXP Alpha, SPARC as well as PPC Power PC
platforms will continue to be supported for a two-year period after
the release of the respective distribution.

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3) standard appendix:

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 annoucements 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.

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SuSE’s security contact is security@suse.com.

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Regards,
Sebastian Krahmer