Arch Linux ASA-201508-8 Moderate: Gnutls DoS Threat and Resolution

Arch Linux Security Advisory ASA-201508-8
========================================
Severity: Medium
Date    : 2015-08-25
CVE-ID  : CVE-2015-6251
Package : gnutls
Type    : denial of service
Remote  : Yes
Link    : https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/CVE

Summary
======
The package gnutls before version 3.4.4.1-1 is vulnerable to remote
denial of service.

Resolution
=========
Upgrade to 3.4.4.1-1.

# pacman -Syu "gnutls>=3.4.4.1-1"

The problem has been fixed upstream in version 3.4.4 and 3.3.17.

Workaround
=========
None.

Description
==========
Kurt Roeckx reported that decoding a specific certificate with very long
DistinguishedName (DN) entries leads to double free, which may result to
a denial of service. Since the DN decoding occurs in almost all
applications using certificates it is recommended to upgrade the latest
GnuTLS version fixing the issue.

Impact
=====
A remote attacker might be able to remotely crash a vulnerable
application by supplying a crafted certificate with a very long DN.

References
=========
http://www.gnutls.org/security.html#GNUTLS-SA-2015-3
https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2015-6251