The remote Redhat Enterprise Linux 4 / 5 host has packages installed that are affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the RHSA-2008:1023 advisory.

  - pidgin: remote DoS via MSN message with crafted file name (CVE-2008-2955)

  - pidgin: unrestricted download of arbitrary files triggered via UPnP (CVE-2008-2957)

  - pidgin: NSS plugin doesn't verify SSL certificates (CVE-2008-3532)

Note that Nessus has not tested for these issues but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

- specially crafted MSN SLP messages could cause an     integer overflow in pidgin. Attackers could potentially     exploit that to execute arbitrary code (CVE-2008-2927).

  - overly long file names in MSN file transfers could crash     pidgin (CVE-2008-2955).

  - SSL certifcates were not verfied. Therefore piding     didn't notice faked certificates (CVE-2008-3532)

Additionally a problem was fixed that prevented gaim clients from connecting to the ICQ network after a server change on July 1st 2008.

The remote host is affected by the vulnerability described in GLSA-200901-13 (Pidgin: Multiple vulnerabilities)

    Multiple vulnerabilities have been discovered in Pidgin and the     libpurple library:
    A participant to the TippingPoint ZDI reported multiple integer     overflows in the msn_slplink_process_msg() function in the MSN protocol     implementation (CVE-2008-2927).
    Juan Pablo Lopez Yacubian is credited for reporting a use-after-free     flaw in msn_slplink_process_msg() in the MSN protocol implementation     (CVE-2008-2955).
    The included UPnP server does not limit the size of data to be     downloaded for UPnP service discovery, according to a report by Andrew     Hunt and Christian Grothoff (CVE-2008-2957).
    Josh Triplett discovered that the NSS plugin for libpurple does not     properly verify SSL certificates (CVE-2008-3532).
  Impact :

    A remote attacker could send specially crafted messages or files using     the MSN protocol which could result in the execution of arbitrary code     or crash Pidgin. NOTE: Successful exploitation might require the     victim's interaction. Furthermore, an attacker could conduct     man-in-the-middle attacks to obtain sensitive information using bad     certificates and cause memory and disk resources to exhaust.
  Workaround :

    There is no known workaround at this time.

- specially crafted MSN SLP messages could cause an     integer overflow in pidgin. Attackers could potentially     exploit that to execute arbitrary code. (CVE-2008-2927)

  - overly long file names in MSN file transfers could crash     pidgin. (CVE-2008-2955)

  - SSL certifcates were not verfied. Therefore piding     didn't notice faked certificates. (CVE-2008-3532)

Additionally a problem was fixed that prevented gaim clients from connecting to the ICQ network after a server change on July 1st 2008.

The NSS plugin in libpurple in Pidgin 2.4.1 does not verify SSL certificates, which makes it easier for remote attackers to trick a user into accepting an invalid server certificate for a spoofed service. (CVE-2008-3532)

Pidgin 2.4.1 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via a long filename that contains certain characters, as demonstrated using an MSN message that triggers the crash in the msn_slplink_process_msg function. (CVE-2008-2955)

The UPnP functionality in Pidgin 2.0.0, and possibly other versions, allows remote attackers to trigger the download of arbitrary files and cause a denial of service (memory or disk consumption) via a UDP packet that specifies an arbitrary URL. (CVE-2008-2957)

The updated packages have been patched to fix these issues.

Security vulnerabilities has been identified and fixed in pidgin :

The NSS plugin in libpurple in Pidgin 2.4.1 does not verify SSL certificates, which makes it easier for remote attackers to trick a user into accepting an invalid server certificate for a spoofed service. (CVE-2008-3532)

Pidgin 2.4.1 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via a long filename that contains certain characters, as demonstrated using an MSN message that triggers the crash in the msn_slplink_process_msg function. (CVE-2008-2955)

The UPnP functionality in Pidgin 2.0.0, and possibly other versions, allows remote attackers to trigger the download of arbitrary files and cause a denial of service (memory or disk consumption) via a UDP packet that specifies an arbitrary URL. (CVE-2008-2957)

Buffer overflow in the XMPP SOCKS5 bytestream server in Pidgin (formerly Gaim) before 2.5.6 allows remote authenticated users to execute arbitrary code via vectors involving an outbound XMPP file transfer. NOTE: some of these details are obtained from third-party information (CVE-2009-1373).

Buffer overflow in the decrypt_out function in Pidgin (formerly Gaim) before 2.5.6 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (application crash) via a QQ packet (CVE-2009-1374).

The PurpleCircBuffer implementation in Pidgin (formerly Gaim) before 2.5.6 does not properly maintain a certain buffer, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (memory corruption and application crash) via vectors involving the (1) XMPP or (2) Sametime protocol (CVE-2009-1375).

Multiple integer overflows in the msn_slplink_process_msg functions in the MSN protocol handler in (1) libpurple/protocols/msn/slplink.c and (2) libpurple/protocols/msnp9/slplink.c in Pidgin (formerly Gaim) before 2.5.6 on 32-bit platforms allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a malformed SLP message with a crafted offset value, leading to buffer overflows. NOTE: this issue exists because of an incomplete fix for CVE-2008-2927 (CVE-2009-1376).

The OSCAR protocol implementation in Pidgin before 2.5.8 misinterprets the ICQWebMessage message type as the ICQSMS message type, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (application crash) via a crafted ICQ web message that triggers allocation of a large amount of memory (CVE-2009-1889).

The msn_slplink_process_msg function in libpurple/protocols/msn/slplink.c in libpurple, as used in Pidgin (formerly Gaim) before 2.5.9 and Adium 1.3.5 and earlier, allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service (memory corruption and application crash) by sending multiple crafted SLP (aka MSNSLP) messages to trigger an overwrite of an arbitrary memory location. NOTE: this issue reportedly exists because of an incomplete fix for CVE-2009-1376 (CVE-2009-2694).

Unspecified vulnerability in Pidgin 2.6.0 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via a link in a Yahoo IM (CVE-2009-3025)

protocols/jabber/auth.c in libpurple in Pidgin 2.6.0, and possibly other versions, does not follow the require TLS/SSL preference when connecting to older Jabber servers that do not follow the XMPP specification, which causes libpurple to connect to the server without the expected encryption and allows remote attackers to sniff sessions (CVE-2009-3026).

libpurple/protocols/irc/msgs.c in the IRC protocol plugin in libpurple in Pidgin before 2.6.2 allows remote IRC servers to cause a denial of service (NULL pointer dereference and application crash) via a TOPIC message that lacks a topic string (CVE-2009-2703).

The msn_slp_sip_recv function in libpurple/protocols/msn/slp.c in the MSN protocol plugin in libpurple in Pidgin before 2.6.2 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (NULL pointer dereference and application crash) via an SLP invite message that lacks certain required fields, as demonstrated by a malformed message from a KMess client (CVE-2009-3083).

The msn_slp_process_msg function in libpurple/protocols/msn/slpcall.c in the MSN protocol plugin in libpurple 2.6.0 and 2.6.1, as used in Pidgin before 2.6.2, allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (application crash) via a handwritten (aka Ink) message, related to an uninitialized variable and the incorrect UTF16-LE charset name (CVE-2009-3084).

The XMPP protocol plugin in libpurple in Pidgin before 2.6.2 does not properly handle an error IQ stanza during an attempted fetch of a custom smiley, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (application crash) via XHTML-IM content with cid: images (CVE-2009-3085).

This update provides pidgin 2.6.2, which is not vulnerable to these issues.

From Red Hat Security Advisory 2008:1023 :

Updated Pidgin packages that fix several security issues and bugs are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 and 5.

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

Pidgin is a multi-protocol Internet Messaging client.

A denial-of-service flaw was found in Pidgin's MSN protocol handler.
If a remote user was able to send, and the Pidgin user accepted, a carefully-crafted file request, it could result in Pidgin crashing.
(CVE-2008-2955)

A denial-of-service flaw was found in Pidgin's Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) request handling. A malicious UPnP server could send a request to Pidgin, causing it to download an excessive amount of data, consuming all available memory or disk space. (CVE-2008-2957)

A flaw was found in the way Pidgin handled SSL certificates. The NSS SSL implementation in Pidgin did not properly verify the authenticity of SSL certificates. This could have resulted in users unknowingly connecting to a malicious SSL service. (CVE-2008-3532)

In addition, this update upgrades pidgin from version 2.3.1 to version 2.5.2, with many additional stability and functionality fixes from the Pidgin Project.

Note: the Secure Internet Live Conferencing (SILC) chat network protocol has recently changed, affecting all versions of pidgin shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Pidgin cannot currently connect to the latest version of the SILC server (1.1.14): it fails to properly exchange keys during initial login. This update does not correct this. Red Hat Bugzilla #474212 (linked to in the References section) has more information.

Note: after the errata packages are installed, Pidgin must be restarted for the update to take effect.

All Pidgin users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contains Pidgin version 2.5.2 and resolves these issues.

It was discovered that Pidgin did not properly handle certain topic messages in the IRC protocol handler. If a user were tricked into connecting to a malicious IRC server, an attacker could cause Pidgin to crash, leading to a denial of service. This issue only affected Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, Ubuntu 8.10 and Ubuntu 9.04. (CVE-2009-2703)

It was discovered that Pidgin did not properly enforce the 'require TLS/SSL' setting when connecting to certain older Jabber servers. If a remote attacker were able to perform a man-in-the-middle attack, this flaw could be exploited to view sensitive information. This issue only affected Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, Ubuntu 8.10 and Ubuntu 9.04. (CVE-2009-3026)

It was discovered that Pidgin did not properly handle certain SLP invite messages in the MSN protocol handler. A remote attacker could send a specially crafted invite message and cause Pidgin to crash, leading to a denial of service. This issue only affected Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, Ubuntu 8.10 and Ubuntu 9.04. (CVE-2009-3083)

It was discovered that Pidgin did not properly handle certain errors in the XMPP protocol handler. A remote attacker could send a specially crafted message and cause Pidgin to crash, leading to a denial of service. This issue only affected Ubuntu 8.10 and Ubuntu 9.04.
(CVE-2009-3085)

It was discovered that Pidgin did not properly handle malformed contact-list data in the OSCAR protocol handler. A remote attacker could send specially crafted contact-list data and cause Pidgin to crash, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2009-3615)

It was discovered that Pidgin did not properly handle custom smiley requests in the MSN protocol handler. A remote attacker could send a specially crafted filename in a custom smiley request and obtain arbitrary files via directory traversal. This issue only affected Ubuntu 8.10, Ubuntu 9.04 and Ubuntu 9.10. (CVE-2010-0013)

Pidgin for Ubuntu 8.04 LTS was also updated to fix connection issues with the MSN protocol.

USN-675-1 and USN-781-1 provided updated Pidgin packages to fix multiple security vulnerabilities in Ubuntu 8.04 LTS. The security patches to fix CVE-2008-2955 and CVE-2009-1376 were incomplete. This update corrects the problem. 

It was discovered that Pidgin did not properly handle file transfers containing a long filename and special characters in the MSN protocol handler. A remote attacker could send a specially crafted filename in a file transfer request and cause Pidgin to crash, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2008-2955)

It was discovered that Pidgin did not properly handle certain malformed messages in the MSN protocol handler. A remote attacker could send a specially crafted message and possibly execute arbitrary code with user privileges.
(CVE-2009-1376).

Note that Tenable Network Security has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Ubuntu security advisory. Tenable has attempted to automatically clean and format it as much as possible without introducing additional issues.

Updated Pidgin packages that fix several security issues and bugs are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 and 5.

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

Pidgin is a multi-protocol Internet Messaging client.

A denial-of-service flaw was found in Pidgin's MSN protocol handler.
If a remote user was able to send, and the Pidgin user accepted, a carefully-crafted file request, it could result in Pidgin crashing.
(CVE-2008-2955)

A denial-of-service flaw was found in Pidgin's Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) request handling. A malicious UPnP server could send a request to Pidgin, causing it to download an excessive amount of data, consuming all available memory or disk space. (CVE-2008-2957)

A flaw was found in the way Pidgin handled SSL certificates. The NSS SSL implementation in Pidgin did not properly verify the authenticity of SSL certificates. This could have resulted in users unknowingly connecting to a malicious SSL service. (CVE-2008-3532)

In addition, this update upgrades pidgin from version 2.3.1 to version 2.5.2, with many additional stability and functionality fixes from the Pidgin Project.

Note: the Secure Internet Live Conferencing (SILC) chat network protocol has recently changed, affecting all versions of pidgin shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Pidgin cannot currently connect to the latest version of the SILC server (1.1.14): it fails to properly exchange keys during initial login. This update does not correct this. Red Hat Bugzilla #474212 (linked to in the References section) has more information.

Note: after the errata packages are installed, Pidgin must be restarted for the update to take effect.

All Pidgin users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contains Pidgin version 2.5.2 and resolves these issues.

It was discovered that Pidgin did not properly handle certain malformed messages in the MSN protocol handler. A remote attacker could send a specially crafted message and possibly execute arbitrary code with user privileges. (CVE-2008-2927)

It was discovered that Pidgin did not properly handle file transfers containing a long filename and special characters in the MSN protocol handler. A remote attacker could send a specially crafted filename in a file transfer request and cause Pidgin to crash, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2008-2955)

It was discovered that Pidgin did not impose resource limitations in the UPnP service. A remote attacker could cause Pidgin to download arbitrary files and cause a denial of service from memory or disk space exhaustion. (CVE-2008-2957)

It was discovered that Pidgin did not validate SSL certificates when using a secure connection. If a remote attacker were able to perform a man-in-the-middle attack, this flaw could be exploited to view sensitive information. This update alters Pidgin behaviour by asking users to confirm the validity of a certificate upon initial login.
(CVE-2008-3532).

Note that Tenable Network Security has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Ubuntu security advisory. Tenable has attempted to automatically clean and format it as much as possible without introducing additional issues.

A denial-of-service flaw was found in Pidgin's MSN protocol handler.
If a remote user was able to send, and the Pidgin user accepted, a carefully-crafted file request, it could result in Pidgin crashing.
(CVE-2008-2955)

A denial-of-service flaw was found in Pidgin's Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) request handling. A malicious UPnP server could send a request to Pidgin, causing it to download an excessive amount of data, consuming all available memory or disk space. (CVE-2008-2957)

A flaw was found in the way Pidgin handled SSL certificates. The NSS SSL implementation in Pidgin did not properly verify the authenticity of SSL certificates. This could have resulted in users unknowingly connecting to a malicious SSL service. (CVE-2008-3532)

In addition, this update upgrades pidgin from version 2.3.1 to version 2.5.2, with many additional stability and functionality fixes from the Pidgin Project.

Note: the Secure Internet Live Conferencing (SILC) chat network protocol has recently changed, affecting all versions of pidgin shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Pidgin cannot currently connect to the latest version of the SILC server (1.1.14): it fails to properly exchange keys during initial login. This update does not correct this. Red Hat Bugzilla #474212 (linked to in the References section) has more information.

Note: after the errata packages are installed, Pidgin must be restarted for the update to take effect.

ID	Name	Product	Family	Published	Updated	Severity
35181	RHEL 4 / 5 : pidgin (RHSA-2008:1023)	Nessus	Red Hat Local Security Checks	12/16/2008	4/21/2024	high
39959	openSUSE Security Update : finch (finch-188)	Nessus	SuSE Local Security Checks	7/21/2009	1/14/2021	medium
35432	GLSA-200901-13 : Pidgin: Multiple vulnerabilities	Nessus	Gentoo Local Security Checks	1/21/2009	1/6/2021	medium
51722	SuSE 10 Security Update : pidgin, gaim and finch (ZYPP Patch Number 5573)	Nessus	SuSE Local Security Checks	1/27/2011	1/14/2021	medium
36534	Mandriva Linux Security Advisory : pidgin (MDVSA-2009:025)	Nessus	Mandriva Local Security Checks	4/23/2009	1/6/2021	medium
43024	Mandriva Linux Security Advisory : pidgin (MDVSA-2009:321)	Nessus	Mandriva Local Security Checks	12/7/2009	1/6/2021	critical
34199	openSUSE 10 Security Update : finch (finch-5592)	Nessus	SuSE Local Security Checks	9/14/2008	1/14/2021	medium
67774	Oracle Linux 4 : pidgin (ELSA-2008-1023)	Nessus	Oracle Linux Local Security Checks	7/12/2013	1/14/2021	medium
44057	Ubuntu 8.04 LTS / 8.10 / 9.04 / 9.10 : pidgin vulnerabilities (USN-886-1)	Nessus	Ubuntu Local Security Checks	1/19/2010	9/19/2019	critical
35260	CentOS 4 / 5 : pidgin (CESA-2008:1023)	Nessus	CentOS Local Security Checks	12/23/2008	1/4/2021	medium
36899	Ubuntu 7.10 / 8.04 LTS : pidgin vulnerabilities (USN-675-1)	Nessus	Ubuntu Local Security Checks	4/23/2009	1/19/2021	medium
60505	Scientific Linux Security Update : pidgin on SL4.x, SL5.x i386/x86_64	Nessus	Scientific Linux Local Security Checks	8/1/2012	1/14/2021	medium

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