Debian DSA-3104-1 : bsd-mailx - security update

high Nessus Plugin ID 80057

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Synopsis

The remote Debian host is missing a security-related update.

Description

It was discovered that bsd-mailx, an implementation of the 'mail' command, had an undocumented feature which treats syntactically valid email addresses as shell commands to execute.

Users who need this feature can re-enable it using the 'expandaddr' in an appropriate mailrc file. This update also removes the obsolete-T option. An older security vulnerability, CVE-2004-2771, had already been addressed in the Debian's bsd-mailx package.

Note that this security update does not remove all mailx facilities for command execution, though. Scripts which send mail to addresses obtained from an untrusted source (such as a web form) should use the-- separator before the email addresses (which was fixed to work properly in this update), or they should be changed to invokemail -t or sendmail -i -t instead, passing the recipient addresses as part of the mail header.

Solution

Upgrade the bsd-mailx packages.

For the stable distribution (wheezy), this problem has been fixed in version 8.1.2-0.20111106cvs-1+deb7u1.

Plugin Details

Severity: High

ID: 80057

File Name: debian_DSA-3104.nasl

Version: 1.9

Type: local

Agent: unix

Family: Debian Local Security Checks

Published: 12/17/2014

Updated: 1/11/2021

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

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 6.7

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 7.2

Temporal Score: 5.3

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

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:debian:debian_linux:bsd-mailx, cpe:/o:debian:debian_linux:7.0

Required KB Items: Host/local_checks_enabled, Host/Debian/release, Host/Debian/dpkg-l

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 12/16/2014

Vulnerability Publication Date: 1/14/2020

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2014-7844

DSA: 3104

Detections

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