RHEL 5 : dovecot (RHSA-2009:0205)

medium Nessus Plugin ID 35433

Synopsis

The remote Red Hat host is missing a security update.

Description

An updated dovecot package that corrects two security flaws and various bugs is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

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

Dovecot is an IMAP server for Linux and UNIX-like systems, primarily written with security in mind.

A flaw was found in Dovecot's ACL plug-in. The ACL plug-in treated negative access rights as positive rights, which could allow an attacker to bypass intended access restrictions. (CVE-2008-4577)

A password disclosure flaw was found with Dovecot's configuration file. If a system had the 'ssl_key_password' option defined, any local user could view the SSL key password. (CVE-2008-4870)

Note: This flaw did not allow the attacker to acquire the contents of the SSL key. The password has no value without the key file which arbitrary users should not have read access to.

To better protect even this value, however, the dovecot.conf file now supports the '!include_try' directive. The ssl_key_password option should be moved from dovecot.conf to a new file owned by, and only readable and writable by, root (ie 0600). This file should be referenced from dovecot.conf by setting the '!include_try [/path/to/password/file]' option.

Additionally, this update addresses the following bugs :

* the dovecot init script -- /etc/rc.d/init.d/dovecot -- did not check if the dovecot binary or configuration files existed. It also used the wrong pid file for checking the dovecot service's status. This update includes a new init script that corrects these errors.

* the %files section of the dovecot spec file did not include '%dir %{ssldir}/private'. As a consequence, the /etc/pki/private/ directory was not owned by dovecot. (Note: files inside /etc/pki/private/ were and are owned by dovecot.) With this update, the missing line has been added to the spec file, and the noted directory is now owned by dovecot.

* in some previously released versions of dovecot, the authentication process accepted (and passed along un-escaped) passwords containing characters that had special meaning to dovecot's internal protocols.
This updated release prevents such passwords from being passed back, instead returning the error, 'Attempted login with password having illegal chars'.

Note: dovecot versions previously shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 did not allow this behavior. This update addresses the issue above but said issue was only present in versions of dovecot not previously included with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

Users of dovecot are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which addresses these vulnerabilities and resolves these issues.

Solution

Update the affected dovecot package.

See Also

https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/cve-2008-4577

https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/cve-2008-4870

https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2009:0205

Plugin Details

Severity: Medium

ID: 35433

File Name: redhat-RHSA-2009-0205.nasl

Version: 1.24

Type: local

Agent: unix

Published: 1/21/2009

Updated: 1/14/2021

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

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 4.4

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 6.4

Temporal Score: 4.7

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

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:dovecot, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:5

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

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 1/20/2009

Vulnerability Publication Date: 10/15/2008

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2008-4577, CVE-2008-4870

BID: 31587

CWE: 264

RHSA: 2009:0205