Debian DLA-2498-1 : xerces-c security update

high Nessus Plugin ID 144444

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Synopsis

The remote Debian host is missing a security update.

Description

The UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) discovered that Xerces-C, a validating XML parser library for C++, contains a use-after-free error triggered during the scanning of external DTDs.
An attacker could cause a Denial of Service (DoS) and possibly achieve remote code execution. This flaw has not been addressed in the maintained version of the library and has no complete mitigation. The first is provided by this update which fixes the use-after-free vulnerability at the expense of a memory leak. The other is to disable DTD processing, which can be accomplished via the DOM using a standard parser feature, or via SAX using the XERCES_DISABLE_DTD environment variable.

For Debian 9 stretch, this problem has been fixed in version 3.1.4+debian-2+deb9u2.

We recommend that you upgrade your xerces-c packages.

For the detailed security status of xerces-c please refer to its security tracker page at:
https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/xerces-c

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.

Solution

Upgrade the affected packages.

Plugin Details

Severity: High

ID: 144444

File Name: debian_DLA-2498.nasl

Version: 1.3

Type: local

Agent: unix

Family: Debian Local Security Checks

Published: 12/18/2020

Updated: 2/1/2024

Supported Sensors: Agentless Assessment, Continuous Assessment, Frictionless Assessment Agent, Nessus Agent, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 6.7

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 6.8

Temporal Score: 5

Vector: CVSS2#AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2018-1311

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 8.1

Temporal Score: 7.1

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:U/RL:O/RC:C

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:libxerces-c3.1, cpe:/o:debian:debian_linux:9.0, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:libxerces-c-samples, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:libxerces-c-dev, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:libxerces-c-doc

Required KB Items: Host/local_checks_enabled, Host/Debian/release, Host/Debian/dpkg-l

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 12/17/2020

Vulnerability Publication Date: 12/18/2019

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2018-1311

Detections

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