Ubuntu 11.04 High: USN-1221-1 Mutt Man-In-The-Middle Attack

ubuntu

September 29, 2011

An attacker could trick mutt into trusting a rogue server.

Summary

An attacker could trick mutt into trusting a rogue server.

Software Description:

- mutt: text-based mailreader supporting MIME, GPG, PGP and threading

Details:

It was discovered that mutt incorrectly verified the hostname in an SSL

certificate. An attacker could trick mutt into trusting a rogue SMTPS,

IMAPS, or POP3S server's certificate, which was signed by a trusted certificate

authority, to perform a man-in-the-middle attack.

Topics Covered

security advisory high severity Ubuntu man-in-the-middle attack mutt

Update Instructions

The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following
package versions:

Ubuntu 11.04:
  mutt                            1.5.21-2ubuntu3.1
  mutt-patched                    1.5.21-2ubuntu3.1

Ubuntu 10.10:
  mutt                            1.5.20-9ubuntu2.1
  mutt-patched                    1.5.20-9ubuntu2.1

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS:
  mutt                            1.5.20-7ubuntu1.1
  mutt-patched                    1.5.20-7ubuntu1.1

After a standard system update you need to restart mutt to make
all the necessary changes. Users are encouraged to verify their
~/.mutt_certificates file to ensure only trusted certificates are listed.