CentOS 4 / 5 : exim (CESA-2011:0153)

medium Nessus Plugin ID 51785

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Synopsis

The remote CentOS host is missing one or more security updates.

Description

Updated exim packages that fix one security issue are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 and 5.

The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having moderate security impact. A Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base score, which gives a detailed severity rating, is available from the CVE link in the References section.

Exim is a mail transport agent (MTA) developed at the University of Cambridge for use on UNIX systems connected to the Internet.

A privilege escalation flaw was discovered in Exim. If an attacker were able to gain access to the 'exim' user, they could cause Exim to execute arbitrary commands as the root user. (CVE-2010-4345)

This update adds a new configuration file, '/etc/exim/trusted-configs'. To prevent Exim from running arbitrary commands as root, Exim will now drop privileges when run with a configuration file not listed as trusted. This could break backwards compatibility with some Exim configurations, as the trusted-configs file only trusts '/etc/exim/exim.conf' and '/etc/exim/exim4.conf' by default. If you are using a configuration file not listed in the new trusted-configs file, you will need to add it manually.

Additionally, Exim will no longer allow a user to execute exim as root with the -D command line option to override macro definitions. All macro definitions that require root permissions must now reside in a trusted configuration file.

Users of Exim are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which contain a backported patch to correct this issue. After installing this update, the exim daemon will be restarted automatically.

Solution

Update the affected exim packages.

Plugin Details

Severity: Medium

ID: 51785

File Name: centos_RHSA-2011-0153.nasl

Version: 1.16

Type: local

Agent: unix

Family: CentOS Local Security Checks

Published: 1/28/2011

Updated: 3/28/2022

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

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: High

Score: 8.4

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 6.9

Temporal Score: 6

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

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2010-4345

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:exim-sa, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:exim, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:exim-mon, cpe:/o:centos:centos:4, cpe:/o:centos:centos:5, p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:exim-doc

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

Exploit Available: true

Exploit Ease: Exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 4/14/2011

Vulnerability Publication Date: 12/14/2010

CISA Known Exploited Vulnerability Due Dates: 4/15/2022

Exploitable With

Metasploit (Exim4 string_format Function Heap Buffer Overflow)

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2010-4345

BID: 45341

RHSA: 2011:0153

Detections

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