CentOS 4 : autofs5 (CESA-2007:1177)

medium Nessus Plugin ID 29754

Synopsis

The remote CentOS host is missing a security update.

Description

Updated autofs5 technology preview packages that fix a security issue are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.

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

The autofs utility controls the operation of the automount daemon, which automatically mounts file systems when you use them, and unmounts them when you are not using them. This can include network file systems and CD-ROMs. The autofs5 packages were made available as a technology preview in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.6.

There was a security issue with the default configuration of autofs version 5, whereby the entry for the '-hosts' map did not specify the 'nodev' mount option. A local user with control of a remote NFS server could create special device files on the remote file system, that if mounted using the default '-hosts' map, could allow the user to access important system devices. (CVE-2007-6285)

This issue is similar to CVE-2007-5964, which fixed a missing 'nosuid' mount option in autofs. Both the 'nodev' and 'nosuid' options should be enabled to prevent a possible compromise of machine integrity.

Due to the fact that autofs always mounted '-hosts' map entries 'dev' by default, autofs has now been altered to always use the 'nodev' option when mounting from the default '-hosts' map. The 'dev' option must be explicitly given in the master map entry to revert to the old behavior. This change affects only the '-hosts' map which corresponds to the '/net' entry in the default configuration.

All autofs5 users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which resolve this issue.

Red Hat would like to thank Tim Baum for reporting this issue.

Solution

Update the affected autofs5 package.

See Also

http://www.nessus.org/u?045c42fb

http://www.nessus.org/u?f62adf20

http://www.nessus.org/u?f9468647

Plugin Details

Severity: Medium

ID: 29754

File Name: centos_RHSA-2007-1177.nasl

Version: 1.17

Type: local

Agent: unix

Published: 12/24/2007

Updated: 1/4/2021

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

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 5.9

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 6.2

Temporal Score: 4.6

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

Vulnerability Information

CPE: cpe:/o:centos:centos:4, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:autofs5

Required KB Items: Host/local_checks_enabled, Host/CentOS/release, Host/CentOS/rpm-list

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 12/21/2007

Vulnerability Publication Date: 12/20/2007

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2007-6285

BID: 26970

CWE: 16

RHSA: 2007:1177