Ubuntu 4.10 / 5.04 : php4, php4-universe vulnerability (USN-147-1)

high Nessus Plugin ID 20541

Synopsis

The remote Ubuntu host is missing one or more security-related patches.

Description

A remote code execution vulnerability has been discovered in the XMLRPC module of the PEAR (PHP Extension and Application Repository) extension of PHP. By sending specially crafted XMLRPC requests to an affected web server, a remote attacker could exploit this to execute arbitrary code with the web server's privileges.

In Ubuntu 5.04 (Hoary Hedgehog), the PEAR extension is unsupported (it is contained in the php4-universe package which is part of universe).
However, since this is a highly critical vulnerability, that package was fixed as well.

Please note that many applications contain a copy of the affected XMLRPC code, which must be fixed separately. The following packages may also be affected, but are unsupported in Ubuntu :

- drupal - wordpress - phpwiki - horde3 - ewiki - egroupware - phpgroupware

These packages might be fixed by the community later.

The following common third-party applications are affected as well, but not packaged for Ubuntu :

- Serendipity - Postnuke - tikiwiki - phpwebsite

If you run any affected software, please upgrade them as soon as possible to protect your server.

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

Solution

Update the affected packages.

Plugin Details

Severity: High

ID: 20541

File Name: ubuntu_USN-147-1.nasl

Version: 1.19

Type: local

Agent: unix

Published: 1/15/2006

Updated: 1/19/2021

Supported Sensors: Frictionless Assessment AWS, Frictionless Assessment Azure, Frictionless Assessment Agent, Nessus Agent, Agentless Assessment, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 5.9

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 7.5

Temporal Score: 6.2

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

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:libapache-mod-php4, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:libapache2-mod-php4, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:php4, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:php4-cgi, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:php4-curl, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:php4-dev, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:php4-domxml, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:php4-gd, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:php4-imap, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:php4-ldap, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:php4-mcal, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:php4-mhash, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:php4-mysql, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:php4-odbc, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:php4-pear, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:php4-recode, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:php4-snmp, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:php4-sybase, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:php4-universe-common, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:php4-xslt, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:4.10, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:5.04

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

Exploit Available: true

Exploit Ease: Exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 7/5/2005

Exploitable With

Metasploit (PHP XML-RPC Arbitrary Code Execution)

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2005-1921

BID: 14088

USN: 147-1