Detections
Analytics
CentOS 6 / 7 : mailx (CESA-2014:1999)
high Nessus Plugin ID 80056
Language:
Synopsis
The remote CentOS host is missing a security update.Description
Updated mailx packages that fix two security issues are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 and 7.Red Hat Product Security has rated this update as having Moderate security impact. Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base scores, which give detailed severity ratings, are available for each vulnerability from the CVE links in the References section.
The mailx packages contain a mail user agent that is used to manage mail using scripts.
A flaw was found in the way mailx handled the parsing of email addresses. A syntactically valid email address could allow a local attacker to cause mailx to execute arbitrary shell commands through shell meta-characters and the direct command execution functionality.
(CVE-2004-2771, CVE-2014-7844)
Note: Applications using mailx to send email to addresses obtained from untrusted sources will still remain vulnerable to other attacks if they accept email addresses which start with '-' (so that they can be confused with mailx options). To counteract this issue, this update also introduces the '--' option, which will treat the remaining command line arguments as email addresses.
All mailx users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches to correct these issues.
Solution
Update the affected mailx package.See Also
Plugin Details
Severity: High
ID: 80056
File Name: centos_RHSA-2014-1999.nasl
Version: 1.13
Type: local
Agent: unix
Family: CentOS Local Security Checks
Published: 12/17/2014
Updated: 1/4/2021
Supported Sensors: Agentless Assessment, Frictionless Assessment Agent, Frictionless Assessment AWS, Frictionless Assessment Azure, Nessus
Risk Information
VPR
Risk Factor: Medium
Score: 6.7
CVSS v2
Risk Factor: High
Base Score: 7.5
Temporal Score: 5.5
Vector: CVSS2#AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
CVSS Score Source: CVE-2004-2771
CVSS v3
Risk Factor: High
Base Score: 7.8
Temporal Score: 6.8
Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/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:centos:centos:mailx, cpe:/o:centos:centos:7, cpe:/o:centos:centos:6
Required KB Items: Host/local_checks_enabled, Host/CentOS/release, Host/CentOS/rpm-list
Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available
Patch Publication Date: 12/16/2014
Vulnerability Publication Date: 12/24/2014
Reference Information
CVE: CVE-2004-2771, CVE-2014-7844
RHSA: 2014:1999