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SuSE: cron-3.0.1-75 Critical: Local Root Compromise and DoS Attack

Three security threats were found in the vixie crond, which is shipped with SuSE Linux. 1) no boundchecking on a local buffer, while copying data from MAILTO 2) passing invalid options to sendmail 3) it doesn't drop root privileges while sending acknowledge mail to a user . ______________________________________________________________________________ SuSE Security Announcement Package: cron-3.0.1-75 (Vixie Cron) and previous versions Date: Fri Aug 27 17:56:48 CEST 1999 Affected: maybe all Unix operatingsystems using crond ______________________________________________________________________________ Some security holes were discovered in the package mentioned above. Please update as soon as possible or disable the service if you are using this software on your SuSE Linux installation(s). Other Linux distributions or operating systems might be affected as well, please contact your vendor for information about this issue. Please note, that that we provide this information on as "as-is" basis only. There is no warranty whatsoever and no liability for any direct, indirect or incidental damage arising from this information or the installation of the update package. _____________________________________________________________________________ 1. Problem Description Three security threats were found in the vixie crond, which is shipped with SuSE Linux. 1) no boundchecking on a local buffer, while copying data from MAILTO 2) passing invalid options to sendmail 3) it doesn't drop root privileges while sending acknowledge mail to a user 2. Impact 1) local root compromise by putting arbitrary code on the stack 2/3) triggering a local denial-of-service attack by starting alot of sendmail daemons execute sendmail with options that only root could apply (like '-C'), which also leads to local root compromise 3. Solution Updated the crond package from our FTPserver. ______________________________________________________________________________ Here are the md5 checksums of the upgrade packages, please verify these before installing the new packages: bfc9ab01fdfd36eebb3cc398bbb34c37 cron-3.0.1-84.i386.rpm (6.2) 8998dbecf020d8a6f7ba1a2885f986da cron-3.0.1-82.i386.rpm (6.1) ______________________________________________________________________________ You will find the update on our ftp-Server: Webpage for patches: https://www.suse.com/de-de/ or try the following web pages for a list of mirrors: https://www.suse.com/de-de/ ______________________________________________________________________________ . Important advisory issued for SuSE Linux administrators regarding Vixie Cron after the discovery of three critical security vulnerabilities that compromise local system access.. SuSE Linux, Cron Security, Critical Patches, Local Exploits, DoS Threats. . Severity: Critical. LinuxSecurity.com Team

Dec 08, 1999 •Critical SuSE