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Red Hat: RHSA-2012:0308-03 Low: BusyBox Update Security Issues

red hat
Calendar Grey February 21, 2012
Dist Redhat Esm H88
Recent updates to busybox packages tackle minor security vulnerabilities and bugs affecting Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Updated busybox packages that fix two security issues and two bugs are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5

Solution

Before applying this update, make sure all previously-released errata relevant to your system have been applied.

This update is available via the Red Hat Network. Details on how to use the Red Hat Network to apply this update are available at https://access.redhat.com/kb/docs/DOC-11259

Summary

BusyBox provides a single binary that includes versions of a large number of system commands, including a shell. This can be very useful for recovering from certain types of system failures, particularly those involving broken shared libraries.
A buffer underflow flaw was found in the way the uncompress utility of BusyBox expanded certain archive files compressed using Lempel-Ziv compression. If a user were tricked into expanding a specially-crafted archive file with uncompress, it could cause BusyBox to crash or, potentially, execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user running BusyBox. (CVE-2006-1168)
The BusyBox DHCP client, udhcpc, did not sufficiently sanitize certain options provided in DHCP server replies, such as the client hostname. A malicious DHCP server could send such an option with a specially-crafted value to a DHCP client. If this option's value was saved on the client system, and then later insecurely evaluated by a process that assumes the option is trusted, it could lead to arbitrary code execution with the privileges of that process. Note: udhcpc is not used on Red Hat Enterprise Linux by default, and no DHCP client script is provided with the busybox packages. (CVE-2011-2716)
This update also fixes the following bugs:
* Prior to this update, the cp command wrongly returned the exit code 0 to indicate success if a device ran out of space while attempting to copy files of more than 4 gigabytes. This update modifies BusyBox, so that in such situations, the exit code 1 is returned. Now, the cp command shows correctly whether a process failed. (BZ#689659)
* Prior to this update, the findfs command failed to check all existing block devices on a system with thousands of block device nodes in "/dev/". This update modifies BusyBox so that findfs checks all block devices even in this case. (BZ#756723)
All users of busybox are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which correct these issues.

References

https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2006-1168 https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2011-2716 https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/classification#low

Package List

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop (v. 5 client):
Source:
i386: busybox-1.2.0-13.el5.i386.rpm busybox-anaconda-1.2.0-13.el5.i386.rpm
x86_64: busybox-1.2.0-13.el5.x86_64.rpm busybox-anaconda-1.2.0-13.el5.x86_64.rpm
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (v. 5 server):
Source:
i386: busybox-1.2.0-13.el5.i386.rpm busybox-anaconda-1.2.0-13.el5.i386.rpm
ia64: busybox-1.2.0-13.el5.ia64.rpm busybox-anaconda-1.2.0-13.el5.ia64.rpm
ppc: busybox-1.2.0-13.el5.ppc.rpm busybox-anaconda-1.2.0-13.el5.ppc.rpm
s390x: busybox-1.2.0-13.el5.s390x.rpm busybox-anaconda-1.2.0-13.el5.s390x.rpm
x86_64: busybox-1.2.0-13.el5.x86_64.rpm busybox-anaconda-1.2.0-13.el5.x86_64.rpm
These packages are GPG signed by Red Hat for security. Our key and details on how to verify the signature are available from https://access.redhat.com/security/team/key#package


Severity
low
Lowest
Low
Medium
High
Critical

Advisory ID: RHSA-2012:0308-03
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Issue date: 2012-02-21

Topic

Updated busybox packages that fix two security issues and two bugs are nowavailable for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having lowsecurity impact. Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base scores,which give detailed severity ratings, are available for each vulnerabilityfrom the CVE links in the References section.

Relevant Releases Architectures

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (v. 5 server) - i386, ia64, ppc, s390x, x86_64

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop (v. 5 client) - i386, x86_64

Bugs Fixed

201919 - CVE-2006-1168 ncompress: .bss buffer underflow in decompression

689659 - "busybox cp" does not return a correct exit code when "No space left on device"

725364 - CVE-2011-2716 busybox: udhcpc insufficient checking of DHCP options

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