Buffer overflow in the proxyReadClientSocket function in proxy/libvirt_proxy.c in libvirt_proxy 0.5.1 might allow local users to gain privileges by sending a portion of the header of a virProxyPacket packet, and then sending the remainder of the packet with crafted values in the header, related to use of uninitialized memory in a validation check.

From Red Hat Security Advisory 2009:0382 :

Updated libvirt packages that fix two security issues are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

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

[Updated 5th May 2011] After installing this update and restarting the libvirtd service, the 'virsh attach-disk' command failed. Rebooting guest systems after installing the update resolved the issue. The erratum text has been updated to reflect that guest systems must be rebooted. Future updates will advise if a guest reboot is needed. No changes have been made to the packages.

libvirt is a C API for managing and interacting with the virtualization capabilities of Linux and other operating systems.
libvirt also provides tools for remotely managing virtualized systems.

The libvirtd daemon was discovered to not properly check user connection permissions before performing certain privileged actions, such as requesting migration of an unprivileged guest domain to another system. A local user able to establish a read-only connection to libvirtd could use this flaw to perform actions that should be restricted to read-write connections. (CVE-2008-5086)

libvirt_proxy, a setuid helper application allowing non-privileged users to communicate with the hypervisor, was discovered to not properly validate user requests. Local users could use this flaw to cause a stack-based buffer overflow in libvirt_proxy, possibly allowing them to run arbitrary code with root privileges.
(CVE-2009-0036)

All users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches which resolve these issues. After installing the update, libvirtd must be restarted manually (for example, by issuing a 'service libvirtd restart' command), and guest systems rebooted, for this change to take effect.

The remote Redhat Enterprise Linux 5 host has packages installed that are affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the RHSA-2009:0382 advisory.

  - libvirt: missing checks for read-only connection (CVE-2008-5086)

  - libvirt: libvirt_proxy buffer overflow (CVE-2009-0036)

Note that Nessus has not tested for these issues but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

The libvirtd daemon was discovered to not properly check user connection permissions before performing certain privileged actions, such as requesting migration of an unprivileged guest domain to another system. A local user able to establish a read-only connection to libvirtd could use this flaw to perform actions that should be restricted to read-write connections. (CVE-2008-5086)

libvirt_proxy, a setuid helper application allowing non-privileged users to communicate with the hypervisor, was discovered to not properly validate user requests. Local users could use this flaw to cause a stack-based buffer overflow in libvirt_proxy, possibly allowing them to run arbitrary code with root privileges.
(CVE-2009-0036)

After installing the update, libvirtd must be restarted manually (for example, by issuing a 'service libvirtd restart' command) for this change to take effect.

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
67832	Oracle Linux 5 : libvirt (ELSA-2009-0382)	Nessus	Oracle Linux Local Security Checks	high
63878	RHEL 5 : libvirt (RHSA-2009:0382)	Nessus	Red Hat Local Security Checks	critical
60551	Scientific Linux Security Update : libvirt on SL5.x i386/x86_64	Nessus	Scientific Linux Local Security Checks	high

Detections

Analytics

CVE-2009-0036

critical

Tenable Plugins

high

critical

high