CentOS 5 : xinetd (CESA-2013:1302)

medium Nessus Plugin ID 79148

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Synopsis

The remote CentOS host is missing a security update.

Description

An updated xinetd package that fixes one security issue and two bugs is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having low 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.

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#852274)

* 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#811000)

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

Solution

Update the affected xinetd package.

Plugin Details

Severity: Medium

ID: 79148

File Name: centos_RHSA-2013-1302.nasl

Version: 1.7

Type: local

Agent: unix

Family: CentOS Local Security Checks

Published: 11/12/2014

Updated: 1/4/2021

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

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 5.9

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

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:centos:centos:xinetd, cpe:/o:centos:centos:5

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

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 10/7/2013

Vulnerability Publication Date: 6/4/2012

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2012-0862

BID: 53720

RHSA: 2013:1302

Detections

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