Synopsis
The remote Red Hat host is missing one or more security updates for glibc.
Description
The remote Redhat Enterprise Linux 6 host has packages installed that are affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the RHSA-2015:0016 advisory.
The glibc packages provide the standard C libraries (libc), POSIX thread libraries (libpthread), standard math libraries (libm), and the Name Server Caching Daemon (nscd) used by multiple programs on the system. Without these libraries, the Linux system cannot function correctly.
An out-of-bounds read flaw was found in the way glibc's iconv() function converted certain encoded data to UTF-8. An attacker able to make an application call the iconv() function with a specially crafted argument could use this flaw to crash that application. (CVE-2014-6040)
It was found that the wordexp() function would perform command substitution even when the WRDE_NOCMD flag was specified. An attacker able to provide specially crafted input to an application using the wordexp() function, and not sanitizing the input correctly, could potentially use this flaw to execute arbitrary commands with the credentials of the user running that application. (CVE-2014-7817)
The CVE-2014-7817 issue was discovered by Tim Waugh of the Red Hat Developer Experience Team.
This update also fixes the following bugs:
* Previously, when an address lookup using the getaddrinfo() function for the AF_UNSPEC value was performed on a defective DNS server, the server in some cases responded with a valid response for the A record, but a referral response for the AAAA record, which resulted in a lookup failure. A prior update was implemented for getaddrinfo() to return the valid response, but it contained a typographical error, due to which the lookup could under some circumstances still fail. This error has been corrected and getaddrinfo() now returns a valid response in the described circumstances.
(BZ#1172023)
* An error in the dlopen() library function previously caused recursive calls to dlopen() to terminate unexpectedly or to abort with a library assertion. This error has been fixed and recursive calls to dlopen() no longer crash or abort. (BZ#1173469)
All glibc 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 glibc package based on the guidance in RHSA-2015:0016.
Plugin Details
File Name: redhat-RHSA-2015-0016.nasl
Agent: unix
Supported Sensors: Agentless Assessment, Continuous Assessment, Frictionless Assessment Agent, Frictionless Assessment AWS, Frictionless Assessment Azure, Nessus Agent, Nessus
Risk Information
Vendor
Vendor Severity: Moderate
Vector: CVSS2#AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:P/RL:O/RC:C
Vulnerability Information
CPE: p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:glibc-headers, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:6, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:glibc-utils, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:glibc-common, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:glibc-devel, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:glibc-static, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:glibc, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:nscd
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: 1/7/2015
Vulnerability Publication Date: 11/24/2014