RHEL 6 : libxml2 (RHSA-2011:1749)

critical Nessus Plugin ID 57022

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Synopsis

The remote Red Hat host is missing one or more security updates for libxml2.

Description

The remote Redhat Enterprise Linux 6 host has packages installed that are affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the RHSA-2011:1749 advisory.

The libxml2 library is a development toolbox providing the implementation of various XML standards. One of those standards is the XML Path Language (XPath), which is a language for addressing parts of an XML document.

An off-by-one error, leading to a heap-based buffer overflow, was found in the way libxml2 parsed certain XML files. A remote attacker could provide a specially-crafted XML file that, when opened in an application linked against libxml2, would cause the application to crash or, potentially, execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user running the application. (CVE-2011-0216)

An integer overflow flaw, leading to a heap-based buffer overflow, was found in the way libxml2 parsed certain XPath expressions. If an attacker were able to supply a specially-crafted XML file to an application using libxml2, as well as an XPath expression for that application to run against the crafted file, it could cause the application to crash or, possibly, execute arbitrary code. (CVE-2011-1944)

Multiple flaws were found in the way libxml2 parsed certain XPath expressions. If an attacker were able to supply a specially-crafted XML file to an application using libxml2, as well as an XPath expression for that application to run against the crafted file, it could cause the application to crash. (CVE-2010-4008, CVE-2010-4494, CVE-2011-2821, CVE-2011-2834)

Note: Red Hat does not ship any applications that use libxml2 in a way that would allow the CVE-2011-1944, CVE-2010-4008, CVE-2010-4494, CVE-2011-2821, and CVE-2011-2834 flaws to be exploited; however, third-party applications may allow XPath expressions to be passed which could trigger these flaws.

Red Hat would like to thank the Google Security Team for reporting the CVE-2010-4008 issue. Upstream acknowledges Bui Quang Minh from Bkis as the original reporter of CVE-2010-4008.

This update also fixes the following bugs:

* A number of patches have been applied to harden the XPath processing code in libxml2, such as fixing memory leaks, rounding errors, XPath numbers evaluations, and a potential error in encoding conversion. (BZ#732335)

All users of libxml2 are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches to correct these issues. The desktop must be restarted (log out, then log back in) for this update to take effect.

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Red Hat Enterprise Linux security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for these issues but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

Solution

Update the RHEL libxml2 package based on the guidance in RHSA-2011:1749.

Plugin Details

Severity: Critical

ID: 57022

File Name: redhat-RHSA-2011-1749.nasl

Version: 1.26

Type: local

Agent: unix

Family: Red Hat Local Security Checks

Published: 12/6/2011

Updated: 4/14/2025

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

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 6.7

Vendor

Vendor Severity: Low

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 9.3

Temporal Score: 7.3

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

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2011-1944

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Critical

Base Score: 9.8

Temporal Score: 8.8

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

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

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2011-2834

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:libxml2-static, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:libxml2-devel, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:6, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:libxml2, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:libxml2-python

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

Exploit Available: true

Exploit Ease: Exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 12/6/2011

Vulnerability Publication Date: 11/16/2010

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2010-4008, CVE-2010-4494, CVE-2011-0216, CVE-2011-1944, CVE-2011-2821, CVE-2011-2834

BID: 44779, 45617, 48056, 48832, 49279, 49658

CWE: 122, 476, 672

RHSA: 2011:1749

Detections

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