wpa_supplicant 0.4.0 through 2.5 does not reject \n and \r characters in passphrase parameters, which allows local users to trigger arbitrary library loading and consequently gain privileges, or cause a denial of service (daemon outage), via a crafted (1) SET, (2) SET_CRED, or (3) SET_NETWORK command.

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed that are impacted by a vulnerability without a vendor supplied patch available.

  - wpa_supplicant 0.4.0 through 2.5 does not reject \n and \r characters in passphrase parameters, which     allows local users to trigger arbitrary library loading and consequently gain privileges, or cause a     denial of service (daemon outage), via a crafted (1) SET, (2) SET_CRED, or (3) SET_NETWORK command.
    (CVE-2016-4477)

Note that Nessus relies on the presence of the package as reported by the vendor.

The remote Ubuntu 14.04 LTS / 16.04 LTS host has packages installed that are affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the USN-3455-1 advisory.

    Mathy Vanhoef discovered that wpa_supplicant and hostapd incorrectly handled WPA2. A remote attacker could     use this issue with key reinstallation attacks to obtain sensitive information. (CVE-2017-13077,     CVE-2017-13078, CVE-2017-13079, CVE-2017-13080, CVE-2017-13081, CVE-2017-13082, CVE-2017-13086,     CVE-2017-13087, CVE-2017-13088)

    Imre Rad discovered that wpa_supplicant and hostapd incorrectly handled invalid characters in passphrase     parameters. A remote attacker could use this issue to cause a denial of service. (CVE-2016-4476)

    Imre Rad discovered that wpa_supplicant and hostapd incorrectly handled invalid characters in passphrase     parameters. A local attacker could use this issue to cause a denial of service, or possibly execute     arbitrary code. (CVE-2016-4477)

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Ubuntu security advisory.

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

Jouni Malinen reports :

psk configuration parameter update allowing arbitrary data to be written (2016-1 - CVE-2016-4476/CVE-2016-4477).

A vulnerability was found in how hostapd and wpa_supplicant writes the configuration file update for the WPA/WPA2 passphrase parameter. If this parameter has been updated to include control characters either through a WPS operation (CVE-2016-4476) or through local configuration change over the wpa_supplicant control interface (CVE-2016-4477), the resulting configuration file may prevent the hostapd and wpa_supplicant from starting when the updated file is used. In addition for wpa_supplicant, it may be possible to load a local library file and execute code from there with the same privileges under which the wpa_supplicant process runs.

CVE-2016-4476 hostapd 0.6.7 through 2.5 and wpa_supplicant 0.6.7 through 2.5 do not reject \n and \r characters in passphrase parameters, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (daemon outage) via a crafted WPS operation.

CVE-2016-4477 wpa_supplicant 0.4.0 through 2.5 does not reject \n and \r characters in passphrase parameters, which allows local users to trigger arbitrary library loading and consequently gain privileges, or cause a denial of service (daemon outage), via a crafted (1) SET, (2) SET_CRED, or (3) SET_NETWORK command.

For Debian 7 'Wheezy', these problems have been fixed in version 1.0-3+deb7u4.

We recommend that you upgrade your wpa packages.

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

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
219734	Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2016-4477	Nessus	Misc.	high
103863	Ubuntu 14.04 LTS / 16.04 LTS : wpa_supplicant and hostapd vulnerabilities (USN-3455-1)	Nessus	Ubuntu Local Security Checks	high
91268	FreeBSD : hostapd and wpa_supplicant -- psk configuration parameter update allowing arbitrary data to be written (967b852b-1e28-11e6-8dd3-002590263bf5)	Nessus	FreeBSD Local Security Checks	high
91135	Debian DLA-473-1 : wpa security update	Nessus	Debian Local Security Checks	high

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