Buffer overflow in Mutt 1.4.2 might allow local users to execute arbitrary code via "&" characters in the GECOS field, which triggers the overflow during alias expansion.

From Red Hat Security Advisory 2007:0386 :

An updated mutt package that fixes several security bugs is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, 4 and 5.

This update has been rated as having moderate security impact by the Red Hat Security Response Team.

Mutt is a text-mode mail user agent.

A flaw was found in the way Mutt used temporary files on NFS file systems. Due to an implementation issue in the NFS protocol, Mutt was not able to exclusively open a new file. A local attacker could conduct a time-dependent attack and possibly gain access to e-mail attachments opened by a victim. (CVE-2006-5297)

A flaw was found in the way Mutt processed certain APOP authentication requests. By sending certain responses when mutt attempted to authenticate against an APOP server, a remote attacker could potentially acquire certain portions of a user's authentication credentials. (CVE-2007-1558)

A flaw was found in the way Mutt handled certain characters in gecos fields which could lead to a buffer overflow. The gecos field is an entry in the password database typically used to record general information about the user. A local attacker could give themselves a carefully crafted 'Real Name' which could execute arbitrary code if a victim uses Mutt and expands the attackers alias. (CVE-2007-2683)

All users of mutt should upgrade to this updated package, which contains a backported patches to correct these issues.

This update fixes two security issues :

The APOP protocol allows remote attackers to guess the first 3 characters of a password via man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks that use crafted message IDs and MD5 collisions. (CVE-2007-1558)

Buffer overflow in Mutt 1.4.2 might allow local users to execute arbitrary code via '&' characters in the GECOS field, which triggers the overflow during alias expansion. (CVE-2007-2683)

Note that Tenable Network Security has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Fedora security advisory. Tenable has attempted to automatically clean and format it as much as possible without introducing additional issues.

A flaw was found in the way Mutt used temporary files on NFS file systems. Due to an implementation issue in the NFS protocol, Mutt was not able to exclusively open a new file. A local attacker could conduct a time-dependent attack and possibly gain access to e-mail attachments opened by a victim. (CVE-2006-5297)

A flaw was found in the way Mutt processed certain APOP authentication requests. By sending certain responses when mutt attempted to authenticate against an APOP server, a remote attacker could potentially acquire certain portions of a user's authentication credentials. (CVE-2007-1558)

A flaw was found in the way Mutt handled certain characters in gecos fields which could lead to a buffer overflow. The gecos field is an entry in the password database typically used to record general information about the user. A local attacker could give themselves a carefully crafted 'Real Name' which could execute arbitrary code if a victim uses Mutt and expands the attackers alias. (CVE-2007-2683)

Securityfocus reports :

Mutt is prone to a local buffer-overflow vulnerability because it fails to properly bounds-check user-supplied input before using it in a memory copy operation. An attacker can exploit this issue to execute arbitrary code with the with the privileges of the victim. Failed exploit attempts will result in a denial of service.

A flaw in the way mutt processed certain APOP authentication requests was discovered. By sending certain responses when mutt attempted to authenticate again an APOP server, a remote attacker could possibly obtain certain portions of the user's authentication credentials (CVE-2007-1558).

A flaw in how mutt handled certain characters in gecos fields could lead to a buffer overflow. A local user able to give themselves a carefully crafted Real Name could potentially execute arbitrary code if a victim used mutt to expand the attacker's alias (CVE-2007-2683).

Updated packages have been patched to address these issues.

An updated mutt package that fixes several security bugs is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, 4 and 5.

This update has been rated as having moderate security impact by the Red Hat Security Response Team.

Mutt is a text-mode mail user agent.

A flaw was found in the way Mutt used temporary files on NFS file systems. Due to an implementation issue in the NFS protocol, Mutt was not able to exclusively open a new file. A local attacker could conduct a time-dependent attack and possibly gain access to e-mail attachments opened by a victim. (CVE-2006-5297)

A flaw was found in the way Mutt processed certain APOP authentication requests. By sending certain responses when mutt attempted to authenticate against an APOP server, a remote attacker could potentially acquire certain portions of a user's authentication credentials. (CVE-2007-1558)

A flaw was found in the way Mutt handled certain characters in gecos fields which could lead to a buffer overflow. The gecos field is an entry in the password database typically used to record general information about the user. A local attacker could give themselves a carefully crafted 'Real Name' which could execute arbitrary code if a victim uses Mutt and expands the attackers alias. (CVE-2007-2683)

All users of mutt should upgrade to this updated package, which contains a backported patches to correct these issues.

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
67505	Oracle Linux 3 / 4 / 5 : mutt (ELSA-2007-0386)	Nessus	Oracle Linux Local Security Checks	low
62264	Fedora 7 : mutt-1.5.14-4.fc7 (2007-0002)	Nessus	Fedora Local Security Checks	low
60195	Scientific Linux Security Update : mutt on SL5.x, SL4.x, SL3.x i386/x86_64	Nessus	Scientific Linux Local Security Checks	low
25804	FreeBSD : mutt -- buffer overflow vulnerability (863f95d3-3df1-11dc-b3d3-0016179b2dd5)	Nessus	FreeBSD Local Security Checks	low
25431	Mandrake Linux Security Advisory : mutt (MDKSA-2007:113)	Nessus	Mandriva Local Security Checks	low
25404	RHEL 3 / 4 / 5 : mutt (RHSA-2007:0386)	Nessus	Red Hat Local Security Checks	low
25403	CentOS 3 / 4 / 5 : mutt (CESA-2007:0386)	Nessus	CentOS Local Security Checks	low

Detections

Analytics

CVE-2007-2683

critical

Tenable Plugins

low

low

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low