RHEL 6 : xinetd (RHSA-2013:0499)

critical Nessus Plugin ID 64751

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Synopsis

The remote Red Hat host is missing a security update for xinetd.

Description

The remote Redhat Enterprise Linux 6 host has a package installed that is affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the RHSA-2013:0499 advisory.

The xinetd package provides a secure replacement for inetd, the Internet services daemon. xinetd provides access control for all services based on the address of the remote host and/or on time of access, and can prevent denial-of-access attacks.

When xinetd services are configured with the TCPMUX or TCPMUXPLUS type, and the tcpmux-server service is enabled, those services are accessible via port 1. It was found that enabling the tcpmux-server service (it is disabled by default) allowed every xinetd service, including those that are not configured with the TCPMUX or TCPMUXPLUS type, to be accessible via port 1. This could allow a remote attacker to bypass intended firewall restrictions. (CVE-2012-0862)

Red Hat would like to thank Thomas Swan of FedEx for reporting this issue.

This update also fixes the following bugs:

* Prior to this update, a file descriptor array in the service.c source file was not handled as expected. As a consequence, some of the descriptors remained open when xinetd was under heavy load. Additionally, the system log was filled with a large number of messages that took up a lot of disk space over time. This update modifies the xinetd code to handle the file descriptors correctly and messages no longer fill the system log.
(BZ#790036)

* Prior to this update, services were disabled permanently when their CPS limit was reached. As a consequence, a failed bind operation could occur when xinetd attempted to restart the service. This update adds additional logic that attempts to restart the service. Now, the service is only disabled if xinetd cannot restart the service after 30 attempts.
(BZ#809271)

All users of xinetd are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which contains backported patches to correct these issues.

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

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

Solution

Update the RHEL xinetd package based on the guidance in RHSA-2013:0499.

Plugin Details

Severity: Critical

ID: 64751

File Name: redhat-RHSA-2013-0499.nasl

Version: 1.17

Type: local

Agent: unix

Family: Red Hat Local Security Checks

Published: 2/21/2013

Updated: 11/4/2024

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

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 5.9

Vendor

Vendor Severity: Low

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 4.3

Temporal Score: 3.2

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

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2012-0862

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

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:xinetd, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:6

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: 2/21/2013

Vulnerability Publication Date: 6/4/2012

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2012-0862

BID: 53720

RHSA: 2013:0499

Detections

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