RHEL 6 : nss, nss-util, and nspr (RHSA-2016:0591)

high Nessus Plugin ID 90386

Language:

Synopsis

The remote Red Hat host is missing one or more security updates.

Description

The remote Redhat Enterprise Linux 6 host has packages installed that are affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the RHSA-2016:0591 advisory.

Network Security Services (NSS) is a set of libraries designed to support the cross-platform development of security-enabled client and server applications. The nss-util packages provide utilities for use with the Network Security Services (NSS) libraries. Netscape Portable Runtime (NSPR) provides platform independence for non-GUI operating system facilities.

The following packages have been upgraded to a newer upstream version: nss 3.21.0, nss-util 3.21.0, nspr 4.11.0. (BZ#1300629, BZ#1299874, BZ#1299861)

Security Fix(es):

* A use-after-free flaw was found in the way NSS handled DHE (Diffie-Hellman key exchange) and ECDHE (Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman key exchange) handshake messages. A remote attacker could send a specially crafted handshake message that, when parsed by an application linked against NSS, would cause that application to crash or, under certain special conditions, execute arbitrary code using the permissions of the user running the application. (CVE-2016-1978)

* A use-after-free flaw was found in the way NSS processed certain DER (Distinguished Encoding Rules) encoded cryptographic keys. An attacker could use this flaw to create a specially crafted DER encoded certificate which, when parsed by an application compiled against the NSS library, could cause that application to crash, or execute arbitrary code using the permissions of the user running the application.
(CVE-2016-1979)

Red Hat would like to thank the Mozilla Project for reporting these issues. Upstream acknowledges Eric Rescorla as the original reporter of CVE-2016-1978; and Tim Taubert as the original reporter of CVE-2016-1979.

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 affected packages.

Plugin Details

Severity: High

ID: 90386

File Name: redhat-RHSA-2016-0591.nasl

Version: 2.13

Type: local

Agent: unix

Family: Red Hat Local Security Checks

Published: 4/7/2016

Updated: 3/21/2025

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

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 5.9

Vendor

Vendor Severity: Moderate

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-2016-1978

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 8.8

Temporal Score: 7.7

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

Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:U/RL:O/RC:C

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2016-1979

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:nss-pkcs11-devel, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:nss-devel, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:nss-tools, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:nss-util, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:nss-sysinit, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:6, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:nspr-devel, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:nspr, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:nss-util-devel, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:nss

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: 4/5/2016

Vulnerability Publication Date: 3/13/2016

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2016-1978, CVE-2016-1979

RHSA: 2016:0591

Detections

Analytics