Scientific Linux Security Update : chrony on SL7.x x86_64 (20151119)

medium Nessus Plugin ID 87551

Synopsis

The remote Scientific Linux host is missing one or more security updates.

Description

An out-of-bounds write flaw was found in the way chrony stored certain addresses when configuring NTP or cmdmon access. An attacker that has the command key and is allowed to access cmdmon (only localhost is allowed by default) could use this flaw to crash chronyd or, possibly, execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the chronyd process.
(CVE-2015-1821)

An uninitialized pointer use flaw was found when allocating memory to save unacknowledged replies to authenticated command requests. An attacker that has the command key and is allowed to access cmdmon (only localhost is allowed by default) could use this flaw to crash chronyd or, possibly, execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the chronyd process. (CVE-2015-1822)

A denial of service flaw was found in the way chrony hosts that were peering with each other authenticated themselves before updating their internal state variables. An attacker could send packets to one peer host, which could cascade to other peers, and stop the synchronization process among the reached peers. (CVE-2015-1853)

The chrony packages have been upgraded to upstream version 2.1.1, which provides a number of bug fixes and enhancements over the previous version. Notable enhancements include :

- Updated to NTP version 4 (RFC 5905)

- Added pool directive to specify pool of NTP servers

- Added leapsecmode directive to select how to correct clock for leap second

- Added smoothtime directive to smooth served time and enable leap smear

- Added asynchronous name resolving with POSIX threads

- Ready for year 2036 (next NTP era)

- Improved clock control

- Networking code reworked to open separate client sockets for each NTP server

This update also fixes the following bug :

- The chronyd service previously assumed that network interfaces specified with the 'bindaddress' directive were ready when the service was started. This could cause chronyd to fail to bind an NTP server socket to the interface if the interface was not ready. With this update, chronyd uses the IP_FREEBIND socket option, enabling it to bind to an interface later, not only when the service starts.

In addition, this update adds the following enhancement :

- The chronyd service now supports four modes of handling leap seconds, configured using the 'leapsecmode' option.
The clock can be either stepped by the kernel (the default 'system' mode), stepped by chronyd ('step' mode), slowly adjusted by slewing ('slew' mode), or the leap second can be ignored and corrected later in normal operation ('ignore' mode). If you select slewing, the correction will always start at 00:00:00 UTC and will be applied at a rate specified in the 'maxslewrate' option.

Solution

Update the affected chrony and / or chrony-debuginfo packages.

See Also

http://www.nessus.org/u?b06cf0eb

Plugin Details

Severity: Medium

ID: 87551

File Name: sl_20151119_chrony_on_SL7_x.nasl

Version: 2.6

Type: local

Agent: unix

Published: 12/22/2015

Updated: 1/14/2021

Supported Sensors: Nessus Agent, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 5.9

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 6.5

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

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 6.5

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:fermilab:scientific_linux:chrony, p-cpe:/a:fermilab:scientific_linux:chrony-debuginfo, x-cpe:/o:fermilab:scientific_linux

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

Patch Publication Date: 11/19/2015

Vulnerability Publication Date: 4/16/2015

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2015-1821, CVE-2015-1822, CVE-2015-1853