RHEL 5 : util-linux (RHSA-2012:0307)

critical Nessus Plugin ID 58061

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Synopsis

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

Description

The remote Redhat Enterprise Linux 5 host has a package installed that is affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the RHSA-2012:0307 advisory.

The util-linux package contains a large variety of low-level system utilities that are necessary for a Linux system to function. Among others, util-linux contains the fdisk configuration tool and the login program.

Multiple flaws were found in the way the mount and umount commands performed mtab (mounted file systems table) file updates. A local, unprivileged user allowed to mount or unmount file systems could use these flaws to corrupt the mtab file and create a stale lock file, preventing other users from mounting and unmounting file systems. (CVE-2011-1675, CVE-2011-1677)

This update also fixes the following bugs:

* When the user logged into a telnet server, the login utility did not update the utmp database properly if the utility was executed from the telnetd daemon. This was due to telnetd not creating an appropriate entry in a utmp file before executing login. With this update, correct entries are created and the database is updated properly. (BZ#646300)

* Various options were not described on the blockdev(8) manual page. With this update, the blockdev(8) manual page includes all the relevant options.
(BZ#650937)

* Prior to this update, the build process of the util-linux package failed in the po directory with the following error message: @MKINSTALLDIRS@:
No such file or directory. An upstream patch has been applied to address this issue, and the util-linux package now builds successfully. (BZ#677452)

* Previously, the ipcs(1) and ipcrm(1) manual pages mentioned an invalid option, -b. With this update, only valid options are listed on those manual pages. (BZ#678407)

* Previously, the mount(8) manual page contained incomplete information about the ext4 and XFS file systems. With this update, the mount(8) manual page contains the missing information. (BZ#699639)

In addition, this update adds the following enhancements:

* Previously, if DOS mode was enabled on a device, the fdisk utility could report error messages similar to the following:

Partition 1 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(0, 1, 1) logical=(0, 2, 7)

This update enables users to switch off DOS compatible mode (by specifying the -c option), and such error messages are no longer displayed.
(BZ#678430)

* This update adds the fsfreeze command which halts access to a file system on a disk. (BZ#726572)

All users of util-linux are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which contains backported patches to correct these issues and add these enhancements.

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 affected util-linux package.

Plugin Details

Severity: Critical

ID: 58061

File Name: redhat-RHSA-2012-0307.nasl

Version: 1.22

Type: local

Agent: unix

Family: Red Hat Local Security Checks

Published: 2/21/2012

Updated: 11/4/2024

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

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 5.9

Vendor

Vendor Severity: Low

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 4.6

Temporal Score: 3.4

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

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2011-1677

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Critical

Base Score: 9.8

Temporal Score: 8.5

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:U/RL:O/RC:C

CVSS v4

Risk Factor: Critical

Base Score: 9.3

Threat Score: 8.1

Threat Vector: CVSS:4.0/E:U

Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:util-linux, 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: 2/21/2012

Vulnerability Publication Date: 4/10/2011

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2011-1675, CVE-2011-1677

BID: 50941

RHSA: 2012:0307

Detections

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