Detections
Analytics
RHEL 6 / 7 : mailx (RHSA-2014:1999)
high Nessus Plugin ID 80074
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Synopsis
The remote Red Hat host is missing one or more security updates for mailx.Description
The remote Redhat Enterprise Linux 6 / 7 host has a package installed that is affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the RHSA-2014:1999 advisory.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.
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 RHEL mailx package based on the guidance in RHSA-2014:1999.See Also
http://www.nessus.org/u?cc42cad8
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2014:1999
https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#moderate
Plugin Details
Severity: High
ID: 80074
File Name: redhat-RHSA-2014-1999.nasl
Version: 1.18
Type: local
Agent: unix
Family: Red Hat Local Security Checks
Published: 12/17/2014
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: 6.7
Vendor
Vendor Severity: Moderate
CVSS v2
Risk Factor: High
Base Score: 7.5
Temporal Score: 5.9
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: 7
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:P/RL:O/RC:C
CVSS Score Source: CVE-2014-7844
Vulnerability Information
CPE: p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:mailx, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:6, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:7
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: 12/16/2014
Vulnerability Publication Date: 12/24/2014
Reference Information
CVE: CVE-2004-2771, CVE-2014-7844