__________________________________________________________ The U.S. Department of Energy Computer Incident Advisory Capability ___ __ __ _ ___ / | /_\ / \___ __|__ / \ \___ __________________________________________________________ INFORMATION BULLETIN Multiple Security Problems in Ethereal 0.10.3 [Ethereal Application Note enpa-sa-00014] May 21, 2004 21:00 GMT Number O-150 [REVISED 09 JUN 2004] ______________________________________________________________________________ PROBLEM: There are security problems with four of the protocol dissectors. Ethereal is a program for monitoring network traffic. PLATFORM: Ethereal version 0.9.8 up to and including 0.10.3 Red Hat Desktop (v.3) Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS, ES, WS, (v.2.1 and v.3) Red Hat Linux Advanced Workstation 2.1 for the Itanium Processor SGI ProPack v2.4 - Altix systems SGI ProPack v3 - Altix systems DAMAGE: The MMSE dissector is susceptible to a buffer overflow. An attacker may convince a victim to read a malicious packet trace file or malicious color filter file which could cause a buffer overflow, and allow the attacker to run arbitrary code. Also, other vulnerabilities exist that may cause Ethereal to crash under certain conditions. SOLUTION: Apply the security update. ______________________________________________________________________________ VULNERABILITY The risk is HIGH. Ethereal is widely used and must be run as ASSESSMENT: root. It may be possible to execute arbitrary code, as root, or cause a crash. ______________________________________________________________________________ LINKS: CIAC BULLETIN: http://www.ciac.org/ciac/bulletins/o-150.shtml ORIGINAL BULLETIN: http://www.ethereal.com/appnotes/enpa-sa-00014.html ADDITIONAL LINKS: Red Hat RHSA-2004:234 https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2004-234.html SGI #20040605-01-U for ProPack v2.4 - Patch #10084 ftp://patches.sgi.com/support/free/security/advisories/20040605-01-U.asc SGI #20040604-01-U for SGI ProPack 3 - Patch #10083 ftp://patches.sgi.com/support/free/security/advisories/20040604-01-U.asc CVE/CAN: http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name= CAN-2004-0504 CAN-2004-0505 CAN-2004-0506 ______________________________________________________________________________ REVISION HISTORY: 6/09/04 - added link to Red Hat Security Advisory 234-06 that provides updated packages to fix this security vulnerability. 6/23/04 - added links for the two new releases of SGI Security Advisories/Patches and updated the PLATFORM section. [***** Start Ethereal Application Note enpa-sa-00014 *****] Summary Name: Multiple security problems in Ethereal 0.10.3 Docid: enpa-sa-00014 Date: March 22, 2004 Versions affected: 0.9.8 up to and including 0.10.3 Severity: High Details Description: Issues have been discovered in the following protocol dissectors: - A SIP packet could make Ethereal crash under specific conditions, as described in the following message: http://www.ethereal.com/lists/ethereal-users/200405/msg00018.html (0.10.3). - The AIM dissector could throw an assertion, causing Ethereal to terminate abnormally (0.10.3). - It was possible for the SPNEGO dissector to dereference a null pointer, causing a crash (0.9.8 to 0.10.3). - The MMSE dissector was susceptible to a buffer overflow. (0.10.1 to 0.10.3). Impact: It may be possible to make Ethereal crash or run arbitrary code by injecting a purposefully malformed packet onto the wire, by convincing someone to read a malformed packet trace file, or by creating a malformed color filter file. Resolution: Upgrade to 0.10.4. If you are running a version prior to 0.10.4 and you cannot upgrade, you can disable all of the protocol dissectors listed above by selecting Analyze->Enabled Protocols... and deselecting them from the list. However, it is strongly recommended that you upgrade to 0.10.4. Please send support questions about Ethereal to the ethereal-users[AT]ethereal.com mailing list. For corrections/additions/suggestions for this web page (and not Ethereal support questions), please send email to ethereal-web[AT]ethereal.com . Last modified: Thu, May 13 2004. [***** End Ethereal Application Note enpa-sa-00014 *****] _______________________________________________________________________________ CIAC wishes to acknowledge the contributions of Ethereal for the information contained in this bulletin. _______________________________________________________________________________ CIAC, the Computer Incident Advisory Capability, is the computer security incident response team for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the emergency backup response team for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). CIAC is located at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California. CIAC is also a founding member of FIRST, the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams, a global organization established to foster cooperation and coordination among computer security teams worldwide. CIAC services are available to DOE, DOE contractors, and the NIH. CIAC can be contacted at: Voice: +1 925-422-8193 (7x24) FAX: +1 925-423-8002 STU-III: +1 925-423-2604 E-mail: ciac@ciac.org Previous CIAC notices, anti-virus software, and other information are available from the CIAC Computer Security Archive. World Wide Web: http://www.ciac.org/ Anonymous FTP: ftp.ciac.org PLEASE NOTE: Many users outside of the DOE, ESnet, and NIH computing communities receive CIAC bulletins. If you are not part of these communities, please contact your agency's response team to report incidents. Your agency's team will coordinate with CIAC. The Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) is a world-wide organization. A list of FIRST member organizations and their constituencies can be obtained via WWW at http://www.first.org/. This document was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor the University of California nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial products, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation or favoring by the United States Government or the University of California. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or the University of California, and shall not be used for advertising or product endorsement purposes. 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