This week advisories were released for python, libxml, clamav, php, kernel, dovecot, firefox, gnutls, gdm, thunderbird, net-snmp, HPLIP, and mysql. The distributors include Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, Mandriva, Red Hat, Slackware, and Ubuntu.

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LinuxSecurity.com Feature Extras:

A Secure Nagios Server - Nagios is a monitoring software designed to let you know about problems on your hosts and networks quickly. You can configure it to be used on any network. Setting up a Nagios server on any Linux distribution is a very quick process however to make it a secure setup it takes some work. This article will not show you how to install Nagios since there are tons of them out there but it will show you in detail ways to improve your Nagios security.

Never Installed a Firewall on Ubuntu? Try Firestarter - When I typed on Google "Do I really need a firewall?" 695,000 results came across. And I'm pretty sure they must be saying "Hell yeah!". In my opinion, no one would ever recommend anyone to sit naked on the internet keeping in mind the insecurity internet carries these days, unless you really know what you are doing.

Read on for more information on Firestarter.

Thank you for reading the LinuxSecurity.com weekly security newsletter. The purpose of this document is to provide our readers with a quick summary of each week's most relevant Linux security headline.

EnGarde Secure Community 3.0.21 Now Available (Oct 7)

Guardian Digital is happy to announce the release of EnGarde Secure Community 3.0.21 (Version 3.0, Release 21). This release includes many updated packages and bug fixes and some feature enhancements to the EnGarde Secure Linux Installer and the SELinux policy.

In distribution since 2001, EnGarde Secure Community was one of the very first security platforms developed entirely from open source, and has been engineered from the ground-up to provide users and organizations with complete, secure Web functionality, DNS, database, e-mail security and even e-commerce.
Debian: New python2.4 packages fix several vulnerabilities (Nov 19)

David Remahl discovered several integer overflows in the stringobject, unicodeobject, bufferobject, longobject, tupleobject, stropmodule, gcmodule, and mmapmodule modules.

advisories/debian/debian-new-python24-packages-fix-several-vulnerabilities
Debian: New libxml2 packages fix several vulnerabilities (Nov 17)

Several vulnerabilities have been discovered in the GNOME XML library. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project identifies the following problems: Drew Yao discovered that missing input sanitising in the xmlBufferResize() function may lead to an infinite loop, resulting in denial of service.

advisories/debian/debian-new-libxml2-packages-fix-several-vulnerabilities
Fedora 9 Update: libxml2-2.7.2-2.fc9 (Nov 19)

Fixes a couple of security issues when overflowing text data size of buffer size.

advisories/fedora/fedora-9-update-libxml2-272-2fc9-09-58-00-144423
Fedora 8 Update: clamav-0.92.1-4.fc8 (Nov 14)

Security fixes from upstream 0.94 and 0.94.1: CVE-2008-3912 (#461461): Multiple out-of-memory NULL pointer dereferences CVE-2008-3913 (#461461): Fix memory leak in the error code path in freshclam CVE-2008-3914 (#461461): File descriptor leak on the error code path CVE-2008-5050 (#470783): get_unicode_name() off-by-one buffer overflow

advisories/fedora/fedora-8-update-clamav-0921-4fc8-07-48-00-144239
Fedora 9 Update: clamav-0.93.3-2.fc9 (Nov 14)

Security fixes from upstream 0.94 and 0.94.1: CVE-2008-1389 (#461461): Invalid memory access in the CHM unpacker CVE-2008-3912 (#461461): Multiple out-of-memory NULL pointer dereferences CVE-2008-3913 (#461461): Fix memory leak in the error code path in freshclam CVE-2008-3914 (#461461): Multiple file descriptor leaks on the error code path CVE-2008-5050 (#470783): get_unicode_name() off-by-one buffer overflow

advisories/fedora/fedora-9-update-clamav-0933-2fc9-07-45-00-144223
Gentoo: PHP Multiple vulnerabilities (Nov 16)

PHP contains several vulnerabilities including buffer and integer overflows which could lead to the remote execution of arbitrary code.
Mandriva: Subject: [Security Announce] [ MDVSA-2008:220-1 ] kernel (Nov 19)

Some vulnerabilities were discovered and corrected in the Linux 2.6 kernel: The snd_seq_oss_synth_make_info function in sound/core/seq/oss/seq_oss_synth.c in the sound subsystem in the Linux kernel before 2.6.27-rc2 does not verify that the device number is within the range defined by max_synthdev before returning certain data to the caller, which allows local users to obtain sensitive information. (CVE-2008-3272)
Mandriva: Subject: [Security Announce] [ MDVSA-2008:232 ] dovecot (Nov 19)

The ACL plugin in dovecot prior to version 1.1.4 treated negative access rights as though they were positive access rights, which allowed attackers to bypass intended access restrictions (CVE-2008-4577).
Mandriva: Subject: [Security Announce] [ MDVSA-2008:231 ] libxml2 (Nov 18)

Drew Yaro of the Apple Product Security Team found two flaws in libxml2. The first is a denial of service flaw in libxml2's XML parser. If an application linked against libxml2 were to process certain malformed XML content, it cause the application to enter an infinite loop (CVE-2008-4225).
Mandriva: Subject: [Security Announce] [ MDVSA-2008:230 ] firefox (Nov 17)

Security vulnerabilities have been discovered and corrected in the latest Mozilla Firefox 3.x, version 3.0.4 (CVE-2008-0017, CVE-2008-5014, CVE-2008-5015, CVE-2008-5016, CVE-2008-5017, CVE-2008-5018, CVE-2008-5019, CVE-2008-5021, CVE-2008-5022, CVE-2008-5023, CVE-2008-5024). This update provides the latest Mozilla Firefox 3.x to correct these issues.
Mandriva: Subject: [Security Announce] [ MDVSA-2008:227-1 ] gnutls (Nov 17)

Martin von Gagern found a flow in how GnuTLS versions 1.2.4 up until 2.6.1 verified certificate chains provided by a server. A malicious server could use this flaw to spoof its identity by tricking client applications that used the GnuTLS library to trust invalid certificates (CVE-2008-4989).
Mandriva: Subject: [Security Announce] [ MDVA-2008:171 ] gdm (Nov 14)

An incorrect memory deallocation was causing a crash when the GNOME display manager was exiting. This package update fixes this issue and includes additional bug fixes and translation updates.
Mandriva: Subject: [Security Announce] [ MDVSA-2008:229 ] clamav (Nov 14)

An off-by-one error was found in ClamAV versions prior to 0.94.1 that could allow remote attackers to cause a denial of service or possibly execute arbitrary code via a crafted VBA project file (CVE-2008-5050). Other bugs have also been corrected in 0.94.1 which is being provided with this update.
RedHat: Moderate: thunderbird security update (Nov 19)

Updated thunderbird packages that fix several security issues are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 and 5. This update has been rated as having moderate security impact by the Red Hat Security Response Team.

advisories/red-hat/redhat-moderate-thunderbird-security-update-RHSA-2007-0723-01
RedHat: Important: kernel security and bug fix update (Nov 19)

Updated kernel packages that resolve several security issues and fix various bugs are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4. This update has been rated as having important security impact by the Red Hat Security Response Team.

advisories/red-hat/redhat-important-kernel-security-and-bug-fix-update-30637
RedHat: Important: libxml2 security update (Nov 17)

Updated libxml2 packages that fix security issues are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1, 3, 4, and 5. This update has been rated as having important security impact by the Red Hat Security Response Team.

advisories/red-hat/redhat-important-libxml2-security-update-99497
Slackware: libxml2 (Nov 20)

New libxml2 packages are available for Slackware 10.0, 10.1, 10.2, 11.0, 12.0, 12.1, and -current to fix security issues including a denial or service or the possible execution of arbitrary code if untrusted XML is processed. More details about the issues may be found in the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) database:
Slackware: mozilla-firefox (Nov 16)

New mozilla-firefox packages are available for Slackware 10.2, 11.0, 12.0, 12.1, and -current to fix security issues. More details may be found on the Mozilla web site: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/known-vulnerabilities/firefox-2.0/ Or, for Slackware -current (using Firefox 3.0.x): https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/known-vulnerabilities/firefox-3.0/
Slackware: net-snmp (Nov 16)

New net-snmp packages are available for Slackware 12.0, 12.1, and -current to fix a denial of service issue. More details about this issue may be found in the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) database: http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2008-4309
Slackware: gnutls (Nov 16)

New gnutls packages are available for Slackware 12.0, 12.1, and -current to correctly fix the certificate chain verification issue that the upgrade to gnutls-2.6.1 attempted to fix. Without this upgrade, processing a certificate chain containing only one self-signed certificate may cause GnuTLS linked programs to crash.
Slackware: seamonkey (Nov 16)

New seamonkey packages are available for Slackware 11.0, 12.0, 12.1, and -current to fix security issues. More details may be found on the Mozilla web site: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/known-vulnerabilities/seamonkey-1.1/
Ubuntu: HPLIP vulnerabilities (Nov 19)

It was discovered that the hpssd tool of hplip did not validate privileges in the alert-mailing function. A local attacker could exploit this to gain privileges and send e-mail messages from the account of the hplip user. This update alters hplip behaviour by preventing users from setting alerts and by moving alert configuration to a root-controlled /etc/hp/alerts.conf file. (CVE-2008-2940) It was discovered that the hpssd tool of hplip did not correctly handle certain commands. A local attacker could use a specially crafted packet to crash hpssd, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2008-2941)

advisories/ubuntu/ubuntu-hplip-vulnerabilities-41936
Ubuntu: MySQL vulnerabilities (Nov 17)

It was discovered that MySQL could be made to overwrite existing table files in the data directory. An authenticated user could use the DATA DIRECTORY and INDEX DIRECTORY options to possibly bypass privilege checks. This update alters table creation behaviour by disallowing the use of the MySQL data directory in DATA DIRECTORY and INDEX DIRECTORY options. (CVE-2008-2079, CVE-2008-4097 and CVE-2008-4098) It was discovered that MySQL did not handle empty bit-string literals properly. An attacker could exploit this problem and cause the MySQL server to crash, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2008-3963)

advisories/ubuntu/ubuntu-mysql-vulnerabilities-82610