______________________________________________________________________________

                        SuSE Security Announcement

        Package:                apcupsd
        Announcement-ID:        SuSE-SA:2003:022
        Date:                   Wednesday, Mar 26th 2003 14:00 MET
        Affected products:      7.3, 8.0, 8.1
        Vulnerability Type:     remote system compromise
        Severity (1-10):        3
        SuSE default package:   no
        Cross References:       CAN-2003-0098
                                CAN-2003-0099

    Content of this advisory:
        1) security vulnerability resolved:
            - several buffer overflows
            - several format bugs
           problem description, discussion, solution and upgrade information
        2) pending vulnerabilities, solutions, workarounds:
            - glibc
            - rxvt
            - vnc
            - openssl
        3) standard appendix (further information)

______________________________________________________________________________

1)  problem description, brief discussion, solution, upgrade information

    The controlling and management daemon apcupsd for APC's Unbreakable
    Power Supplies is vulnerable to several buffer overflows and format
    bugs. These bugs can be exploited remotely by an attacker to gain
    root access to the machine apcupsd is running on.

    There is no temporary fix known.

    Please download the update package for your distribution and verify its
    integrity by the methods listed in section 3) of this announcement.
    Then, install the package using the command "rpm -Fhv file.rpm" to apply
    the update.
    Our maintenance customers are being notified individually. The packages
    are being offered to install from the maintenance web.



    Intel i386 Platform:

    SuSE-8.1:
      
      4a6e718edf75219769dcbc8d42d78586
    patch rpm(s):
      
      1e7a3656b82dd626add69b9473b87e1c
    source rpm(s):
      
      7dd06d1bcefa78bd25eaa512bcbaa67e

    SuSE-8.0:
      
      6ed48e7150f88da8dea856a96ed66cd9
    patch rpm(s):
      
      186dc6bc26808bb0d71d697c5b2152ec
    source rpm(s):
      
      d0671be38f7fe29a2c7bfd3950673af3

    SuSE-7.3:
      
      4e19d2e227716a5dbd56eeda5bbe3e3f
    source rpm(s):
      
      9d80af6c213025944aecf5d08449c552



    Sparc Platform:

    SuSE-7.3:
      
      e76823753f5ae5446be78362d9d0ad47
    source rpm(s):
      
      9e1295c038d72e96ae3c68a4755f46e8



    PPC Power PC Platform:

    SuSE-7.3:
      
      c692b7d1fbf221a1f6f714789f32bada
    source rpm(s):
      
      65d0a076d147b91133bc1a820711147b


______________________________________________________________________________

2)  Pending vulnerabilities in SuSE Distributions and Workarounds:

    - glibc
      SuSE Security is working on glibc updates for the RPC XDR integer overflow
      security problem in glibc. The central function of the glibc package in a
      Linux system requires extensive testing of the update packages. The update
      packages will be provided for download at the usual location and
      publically announced as soon as the testing is completed successfully.

    - rxvt
      A new version of the rxvt packages was put on our FTP servers.
      This version fix' the handling of dangerous escape-sequences.

    - vnc
      VNC (Virtual Network Computing) uses a weak cookie generation process
      which can be exploited by an attacker to bypass authentication.
      New packages are currently being tested and will be available on our
      FTP servers soon.

    - openssl
      A paper regarding remote timing attacks against OpenSSL has been
      published by researchers of the Stanford University. It is possible
      to extract the private RSA key used by services using OpenSSL by
      observing their timing behavior. Fixed packages will be available
      on our FTP servers soon.
______________________________________________________________________________

3)  standard appendix: authenticity verification, additional information

  - Package authenticity verification:

    SuSE update packages are available on many mirror ftp servers all over
    the world. While this service is being considered valuable and important
    to the free and open source software community, many users wish to be
    sure about the origin of the package and its content before installing
    the package. There are two verification methods that can be used
    independently from each other to prove the authenticity of a downloaded
    file or rpm package:
    1) md5sums as provided in the (cryptographically signed) announcement.
    2) using the internal gpg signatures of the rpm package.

    1) execute the command
        md5sum 
       after you downloaded the file from a SuSE ftp server or its mirrors.
       Then, compare the resulting md5sum with the one that is listed in the
       announcement. Since the announcement containing the checksums is
       cryptographically signed (usually using the key security@suse.de),
       the checksums show proof of the authenticity of the package.
       We disrecommend to subscribe to security lists which cause the
       email message containing the announcement to be modified so that
       the signature does not match after transport through the mailing
       list software.
       Downsides: You must be able to verify the authenticity of the
       announcement in the first place. If RPM packages are being rebuilt
       and a new version of a package is published on the ftp server, all
       md5 sums for the files are useless.

    2) rpm package signatures provide an easy way to verify the authenticity
       of an rpm package. Use the command
        rpm -v --checksig 
       to verify the signature of the package, where  is the
       filename of the rpm package that you have downloaded. Of course,
       package authenticity verification can only target an un-installed rpm
       package file.
       Prerequisites:
        a) gpg is installed
        b) The package is signed using a certain key. The public part of this
           key must be installed by the gpg program in the directory
           ~/.gnupg/ under the user's home directory who performs the
           signature verification (usually root). You can import the key
           that is used by SuSE in rpm packages for SuSE Linux by saving
           this announcement to a file ("announcement.txt") and
           running the command (do "su -" to be root):
            gpg --batch; gpg < announcement.txt | gpg --import
           SuSE Linux distributions version 7.1 and thereafter install the
           key "build@suse.de" upon installation or upgrade, provided that
           the package gpg is installed. The file containing the public key
           is placed at the top-level directory of the first CD (pubring.gpg)
           and at   .


  - SuSE runs two security mailing lists to which any interested party may
    subscribe:

    suse-security@suse.com
        -   general/linux/SuSE security discussion.
            All SuSE security announcements are sent to this list.
            To subscribe, send an email to
                <suse-security-subscribe@suse.com>.

    suse-security-announce@suse.com
        -   SuSE's announce-only mailing list.
            Only SuSE's security announcements are sent to this list.
            To subscribe, send an email to
                <suse-security-announce-subscribe@suse.com>.

    For general information or the frequently asked questions (faq)
    send mail to:
        <suse-security-info@suse.com> or
        <suse-security-faq@suse.com> respectively.

    ====================================================================    SuSE's security contact is <security@suse.com> or <security@suse.de>.
    The <security@suse.de> public key is listed below.
    ====================================================================______________________________________________________________________________

    The information in this advisory may be distributed or reproduced,
    provided that the advisory is not modified in any way. In particular,
    it is desired that the clear-text signature shows proof of the
    authenticity of the text.
    SuSE Linux AG makes no warranties of any kind whatsoever with respect
    to the information contained in this security advisory.

Type Bits/KeyID    Date       User ID
pub  2048R/3D25D3D9 1999-03-06 SuSE Security Team <security@suse.de>
pub  1024D/9C800ACA 2000-10-19 SuSE Package Signing Key <build@suse.de>