Updated pam packages that fix two security flaws, resolve two bugs, and add an enhancement are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.

This update has been rated as having moderate security impact by the Red Hat Security Response Team.

Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) provide a system whereby administrators can set up authentication policies without having to recompile programs that handle authentication.

A flaw was found in the way pam_console set console device permissions. It was possible for various console devices to retain ownership of the console user after logging out, possibly leaking information to another local user. (CVE-2007-1716)

A flaw was found in the way the PAM library wrote account names to the audit subsystem. An attacker could inject strings containing parts of audit messages, which could possibly mislead or confuse audit log parsing tools. (CVE-2007-3102)

As well, these updated packages fix the following bugs :

* the pam_xauth module, which is used for copying the X11 authentication cookie, did not reset the 'XAUTHORITY' variable in certain circumstances, causing unnecessary delays when using su command.

* when calculating password similarity, pam_cracklib disregarded changes to the last character in passwords when 'difok=x' (where 'x' is the number of characters required to change) was configured in '/etc/pam.d/system-auth'. This resulted in password changes that should have been successful to fail with the following error :

BAD PASSWORD: is too similar to the old one

This issue has been resolved in these updated packages.

* the pam_limits module, which provides setting up system resources limits for user sessions, reset the nice priority of the user session to '0' if it was not configured otherwise in the '/etc/security/limits.conf' configuration file.

These updated packages add the following enhancement :

* a new PAM module, pam_tally2, which allows accounts to be locked after a maximum number of failed log in attempts.

All users of PAM should upgrade to these updated packages, which resolve these issues and add this enhancement.

Problem description :

A flaw was found in the way pam_console set console device permissions. It was possible for various console devices to retain ownership of the console user after logging out, possibly leaking information to another local user. (CVE-2007-1716)

A flaw was found in the way the PAM library wrote account names to the audit subsystem. An attacker could inject strings containing parts of audit messages which could possibly mislead or confuse audit log parsing tools. (CVE-2007-3102)

As well, these updated packages fix the following bugs :

  - truncated MD5-hashed passwords in '/etc/shadow' were     treated as valid, resulting in insecure and invalid     passwords.

  - the pam_namespace module did not convert context names     to raw format and did not unmount polyinstantiated     directories in some cases. It also crashed when an     unknown user name was used in     '/etc/security/namespace.conf', the pam_namespace     configuration file.

  - the pam_selinux module was not relabeling the     controlling tty correctly, and in some cases it did not     send complete information about user role and level     change to the audit subsystem.

These updated packages add the following enhancements :

  - pam_limits module now supports parsing additional config     files placed into the /etc/security/limits.d/ directory.
    These files are read after the main configuration file.

  - the modules pam_limits, pam_access, and pam_time now     send a message to the audit subsystem when a user is     denied access based on the number of login sessions,     origin of user, and time of login.

  - pam_unix module security properties were improved.
    Functionality in the setuid helper binary, unix_chkpwd,     which was not required for user authentication, was     moved to a new non-setuid helper binary, unix_update.

The remote Oracle Linux 5 host has packages installed that are affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the ELSA-2007-0555 advisory.

    - CVE-2007-3102 - prevent audit log injection through user name (#243204)

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Oracle 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.

Problems addressed by these patches :

I    Arbitrary code execution and denial of service vulnerabilities

     This release fixes a security vulnerability that could allow a      guest operating system user with administrative privileges to cause      memory corruption in a host process, and thus potentially execute      arbitrary code on the host. (CVE-2007-4496)

     This release fixes a denial of service vulnerability that could      allow a guest operating system to cause a host process to become      unresponsive or exit unexpectedly. (CVE-2007-4497)

     Thanks to Rafal Wojtczvk of McAfee for identifying and reporting      these issues.

II   Hosted products DHCP security vulnerabilities addressed

     This release fixes several vulnerabilities in the DHCP server      that could enable a specially crafted packets to gain system-level      privileges. (CVE-2007-0061, CVE-2007-0062, CVE-2007-0063)

     Thanks to Neel Mehta and Ryan Smith of the IBM Internet Security      Systems X-Force for discovering and researching these      vulnerabilities.

III  Windows based hosted product vulnerability in      IntraProcessLogging.dll and vielib.dll.

     This release fixes a security vulnerability that could allow a      malicious remote user to exploit the library file      IntraProcessLogging.dll to overwrite files in a system.
     (CVE-2007-4059)

     This release fixes a security vulnerability that could allow a      malicious remote user to exploit the library file vielib.dll to      overwrite files in a system. (CVE-2007-4155)

     Thanks to the Goodfellas Security Research Team for discovering and      researching these vulnerabilities.

IV  Escalation of privileges on Windows hosted systems

     This release fixes a security vulnerability in which Workstation      was starting registered Windows services in an insecure manner.
     This vulnerability could allow a malicious user to escalate user      privileges.

     Thanks to Foundstone for discovering this vulnerability.

V    Potential denial of service using VMware Player

     This release fixes a problem that prevented VMware Player from      launching. This problem was accompanied by the error message VMware      Player unrecoverable error: (player) Exception 0xc0000005 (access      violation) has occurred.

VI   ESX Service Console updates

a.   Service console package Samba, has been updated to address the      following issues :

     Various bugs were found in NDR parsing, used to decode MS-RPC      requests in Samba. A remote attacker could have sent carefully      crafted requests causing a heap overflow, which may have led to the      ability to execute arbitrary code on the server. (CVE-2007-2446)

     Unescaped user input parameters were being passed as arguments to      /bin/sh. A remote, authenticated, user could have triggered this      flaw and executed arbitrary code on the server. Additionally, this      flaw could be triggered by a remote unauthenticated user if Samba      was configured to use the non-default username map script option.
     (CVE-2007-2447)

     Thanks to the Samba developers, TippingPoint, and iDefense for      identifying and reporting these issues.

     Note: These issues only affect the service console network, and are      not remote vulnerabilities for ESX Server hosts that have been set      up with the security best practices provided by VMware.
     http://www.vmware.com/resources/techresources/726

b.   Updated bind package for the service console fixes a flaw with the      way ISC BIND processed certain DNS query responses.

     ISC BIND (Berkeley Internet Name Domain) is an implementation of      the DNS (Domain Name System) protocols. Under some circumstances, a      malicious remote user could launch a Denial-of-Service attack on      ESX Server hosts that had enabled DNSSEC validation.
     (CVE-2007-0494)

     Note: These issues only affect the service console network, and are      not remote vulnerabilities for ESX Server hosts that have been set      up with the security best practices provided by VMware.
     http://www.vmware.com/resources/techresources/726

c.   This patch provides updated service console package krb5 update.

     The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org)      assigned the names CVE-2007-2442, CVE-2007-2443, and CVE-2007-2798      to these security issues.

     Thanks to Wei Wang of McAfee Avert Labs discovered these      vulnerabilities.

     Note: The VMware service console does not provide the kadmind      binary, and is not affected by these issues, but a update has been      provided for completeness.

d.   Service console update for vixie-cron

     This patch provides an updated service console package vixie-cron.
     Cron is a standard UNIX daemon that runs specified programs at      scheduled times.

     A denial of service issue was found in the way vixie-cron verified      crontab file integrity. A local user with the ability to create a      hardlink to /etc/crontab could potentially prevent vixie-cron from      executing certain system cron jobs. (CVE-2007-1856)

     Thanks to Raphael Marichez for identifying this issue.

e.   Service console update for shadow-utils

     This patch provides an updated shadow-utils package.  A new      user's mailbox, when created, could have random permissions for a      short period. This could enable a local malicious user to      read or modify the mailbox. (CVE-2006-1174)

f.  Service console update for OpenLDAP

     This patch provides a updated OpenLDAP package. A flaw could      allow users with selfwrite access to modify the distinguished      name of any user, instead of being limited to modify only      their own distinguished name. (CVE-2006-4600)

g.   Service console update for PAM

     This patch provides an updated PAM package A vulnerability was      found that could allow console users with access to certain device      files to cause damage to recordable CD drives. Certain file      permissions have now been modified to disallow access.
     (CVE-2004-0813)

     A flaw was found with console device permissions. It was possible      for various console devices to retain ownership of the previoius      console user after logging out, which could result in leakage of      information to an unauthorized user. (CVE-2007-1716)

h.   Service console update for GCC

     This patch provides security fixes for the service console GNU      Compiler Collection (GCC) packages that include C, C++, Java,      Fortran 77, Objective C, and Ada 95 GNU compilers and related      support libraries.

     A flaw was found in the fastjar utility that could potentially      allow a malicious user to create a JAR file which, if unpacked      using fastjar, could write to any file that an authorized user had      write access to. (CVE-2006-3619)

     Thanks to J&uuml;rgen Weigert for identifying this issue.

i.   Service Console update for GDB

     This patch provides a security fix for the service console GNU      debugger (GDB).  Various vulnerabilities were found in GDB. These      vulnerabilities may allow a malicious user to deceive a user into      loading debugging information into GDB, enabling the execution of      arbitrary code with the privileges of the user. (CVE-2006-4146)

The remote host is affected by the vulnerability described in GLSA-200711-23 (VMware Workstation and Player: Multiple vulnerabilities)

    Multiple vulnerabilities have been discovered in several VMware     products. Neel Mehta and Ryan Smith (IBM ISS X-Force) discovered that     the DHCP server contains an integer overflow vulnerability     (CVE-2007-0062), an integer underflow vulnerability (CVE-2007-0063) and     another error when handling malformed packets (CVE-2007-0061), leading     to stack-based buffer overflows or stack corruption. Rafal Wojtczvk     (McAfee) discovered two unspecified errors that allow authenticated     users with administrative or login privileges on a guest operating     system to corrupt memory or cause a Denial of Service (CVE-2007-4496,     CVE-2007-4497). Another unspecified vulnerability related to untrusted     virtual machine images was discovered (CVE-2007-5617).
    VMware products also shipped code copies of software with several     vulnerabilities: Samba (GLSA-200705-15), BIND (GLSA-200702-06), MIT     Kerberos 5 (GLSA-200707-11), Vixie Cron (GLSA-200704-11), shadow     (GLSA-200606-02), OpenLDAP (CVE-2006-4600), PAM (CVE-2004-0813,     CVE-2007-1716), GCC (CVE-2006-3619) and GDB (CVE-2006-4146).
  Impact :

    Remote attackers within a guest system could possibly exploit these     vulnerabilities to execute code on the host system with elevated     privileges or to cause a Denial of Service.
  Workaround :

    There is no known workaround at this time.

A flaw was found in the way the Linux kernel handled certain SG_IO commands. Console users with access to certain device files had the ability to damage recordable CD drives. The way pam_console handled permissions of these files has been modified to disallow access. This change also required modifications to the cdrecord application.
(CVE-2004-0813)

A flaw was found in the way pam_console set console device permissions. It was possible for various console devices to retain ownership of the console user after logging out, possibly leaking information to an unauthorized user. (CVE-2007-1716)

The pam_unix module provides authentication against standard /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow files. The pam_stack module provides support for stacking PAM configuration files. Both of these modules contained small memory leaks which caused problems in applications calling PAM authentication repeatedly in the same process.

From Red Hat Security Advisory 2007:0465 :

Updated pam packages that resolves several bugs and security flaws are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.

This update has been rated as having moderate security impact by the Red Hat Security Response Team.

Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) provide a system whereby administrators can set up authentication policies without having to recompile programs that handle authentication.

A flaw was found in the way the Linux kernel handled certain SG_IO commands. Console users with access to certain device files had the ability to damage recordable CD drives. The way pam_console handled permissions of these files has been modified to disallow access. This change also required modifications to the cdrecord application.
(CVE-2004-0813)

A flaw was found in the way pam_console set console device permissions. It was possible for various console devices to retain ownership of the console user after logging out, possibly leaking information to an unauthorized user. (CVE-2007-1716)

The pam_unix module provides authentication against standard /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow files. The pam_stack module provides support for stacking PAM configuration files. Both of these modules contained small memory leaks which caused problems in applications calling PAM authentication repeatedly in the same process.

All users of PAM should upgrade to these updated packages, which resolve these issues.

Updated pam packages that fix two security flaws, resolve several bugs, and add enhancements are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

This update has been rated as having moderate security impact by the Red Hat Security Response Team.

Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) provide a system whereby administrators can set up authentication policies without having to recompile programs that handle authentication.

A flaw was found in the way pam_console set console device permissions. It was possible for various console devices to retain ownership of the console user after logging out, possibly leaking information to another local user. (CVE-2007-1716)

A flaw was found in the way the PAM library wrote account names to the audit subsystem. An attacker could inject strings containing parts of audit messages which could possibly mislead or confuse audit log parsing tools. (CVE-2007-3102)

As well, these updated packages fix the following bugs :

* truncated MD5-hashed passwords in '/etc/shadow' were treated as valid, resulting in insecure and invalid passwords.

* the pam_namespace module did not convert context names to raw format and did not unmount polyinstantiated directories in some cases. It also crashed when an unknown user name was used in '/etc/security/namespace.conf', the pam_namespace configuration file.

* the pam_selinux module was not relabeling the controlling tty correctly, and in some cases it did not send complete information about user role and level change to the audit subsystem.

These updated packages add the following enhancements :

* pam_limits module now supports parsing additional config files placed into the /etc/security/limits.d/ directory. These files are read after the main configuration file.

* the modules pam_limits, pam_access, and pam_time now send a message to the audit subsystem when a user is denied access based on the number of login sessions, origin of user, and time of login.

* pam_unix module security properties were improved. Functionality in the setuid helper binary, unix_chkpwd, which was not required for user authentication, was moved to a new non-setuid helper binary, unix_update.

All users of PAM should upgrade to these updated packages, which resolve these issues and add these enhancements.

Updated pam packages that resolves several bugs and security flaws are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.

This update has been rated as having moderate security impact by the Red Hat Security Response Team.

Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) provide a system whereby administrators can set up authentication policies without having to recompile programs that handle authentication.

A flaw was found in the way the Linux kernel handled certain SG_IO commands. Console users with access to certain device files had the ability to damage recordable CD drives. The way pam_console handled permissions of these files has been modified to disallow access. This change also required modifications to the cdrecord application.
(CVE-2004-0813)

A flaw was found in the way pam_console set console device permissions. It was possible for various console devices to retain ownership of the console user after logging out, possibly leaking information to an unauthorized user. (CVE-2007-1716)

The pam_unix module provides authentication against standard /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow files. The pam_stack module provides support for stacking PAM configuration files. Both of these modules contained small memory leaks which caused problems in applications calling PAM authentication repeatedly in the same process.

All users of PAM should upgrade to these updated packages, which resolve these issues.

A flaw was found in the way pam_console set console device permissions. It was possible for various console devices to retain ownership of the console user after logging out, possibly leaking information to another local user. (CVE-2007-1716)

A flaw was found in the way the PAM library wrote account names to the audit subsystem. An attacker could inject strings containing parts of audit messages, which could possibly mislead or confuse audit log parsing tools. (CVE-2007-3102)

As well, these updated packages fix the following bugs :

  - the pam_xauth module, which is used for copying the X11     authentication cookie, did not reset the 'XAUTHORITY'     variable in certain circumstances, causing unnecessary     delays when using su command.

  - when calculating password similarity, pam_cracklib     disregarded changes to the last character in passwords     when 'difok=x' (where 'x' is the number of characters     required to change) was configured in     '/etc/pam.d/system-auth'. This resulted in password     changes that should have been successful to fail with     the following error :

BAD PASSWORD: is too similar to the old one

This issue has been resolved in these updated packages.

  - the pam_limits module, which provides setting up system     resources limits for user sessions, reset the nice     priority of the user session to '0' if it was not     configured otherwise in the '/etc/security/limits.conf'     configuration file.

These updated packages add the following enhancement :

  - a new PAM module, pam_tally2, which allows accounts to     be locked after a maximum number of failed log in     attempts.

ID	Name	Product	Family	Published	Updated	Severity
67055	CentOS 4 : pam (CESA-2007:0737)	Nessus	CentOS Local Security Checks	6/29/2013	1/4/2021	medium
60297	Scientific Linux Security Update : pam on SL5.x	Nessus	Scientific Linux Local Security Checks	8/1/2012	1/14/2021	medium
180622	Oracle Linux 5 : pam (ELSA-2007-0555)	Nessus	Oracle Linux Local Security Checks	9/7/2023	10/22/2024	critical
40370	VMSA-2007-0006 : Critical security updates for all supported versions of VMware ESX Server, VMware Server, VMware Workstation, VMware ACE, and VMware Player	Nessus	VMware ESX Local Security Checks	7/27/2009	1/6/2021	critical
28262	GLSA-200711-23 : VMware Workstation and Player: Multiple vulnerabilities	Nessus	Gentoo Local Security Checks	11/20/2007	1/6/2021	critical
60202	Scientific Linux Security Update : pam on SL3.x i386/x86_64	Nessus	Scientific Linux Local Security Checks	8/1/2012	1/14/2021	low
67517	Oracle Linux 3 : pam (ELSA-2007-0465)	Nessus	Oracle Linux Local Security Checks	7/12/2013	1/14/2021	low
27831	RHEL 5 : pam (RHSA-2007:0555)	Nessus	Red Hat Local Security Checks	11/8/2007	1/14/2021	medium
25480	RHEL 3 : pam (RHSA-2007:0465)	Nessus	Red Hat Local Security Checks	6/12/2007	1/14/2021	low
25499	CentOS 3 : pam (CESA-2007:0465)	Nessus	CentOS Local Security Checks	6/14/2007	1/4/2021	low
28239	RHEL 4 : pam (RHSA-2007:0737)	Nessus	Red Hat Local Security Checks	11/16/2007	1/14/2021	medium
60308	Scientific Linux Security Update : pam on SL4.x i386/x86_64	Nessus	Scientific Linux Local Security Checks	8/1/2012	1/14/2021	medium

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