RHSA-2003:246 - Security Advisory

Topic

Updated wu-ftpd packages are available that fix an off-by-one buffer overflow.

Description

The wu-ftpd package contains the Washington University FTP (File Transfer
Protocol) server daemon. FTP is a method of transferring files between
machines.

An off-by-one bug has been discovered in versions of wu-ftpd up to and
including 2.6.2. On a vulnerable system, a remote attacker would be able
to exploit this bug to gain root privileges.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux contains a version of wu-ftpd that is affected by
this bug, although it is believed that this issue will not be remotely
exploitable due to compiler padding of the buffer that is the target of the
overflow. However, Red Hat still advises that all users of wu-ftpd upgrade
to these erratum packages, which contain a security patch.

Red Hat would like to thank Wojciech Purczynski and Janusz Niewiadomski of
ISEC Security Research for their responsible disclosure of this issue.

Solution

Before applying this update, make sure all previously released errata
relevant to your system have been applied.

To update all RPMs for your particular architecture, run:

rpm -Fvh [filenames]

where [filenames] is a list of the RPMs you wish to upgrade. Only those
RPMs which are currently installed will be updated. Those RPMs which are
not installed but included in the list will not be updated. Note that you
can also use wildcards (*.rpm) if your current directory *only* contains the
desired RPMs.

Please note that this update is also available via Red Hat Network. Many
people find this an easier way to apply updates. To use Red Hat Network,
launch the Red Hat Update Agent with the following command:

up2date

This will start an interactive process that will result in the appropriate
RPMs being upgraded on your system.

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 2 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 2 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 2 ia64

Fixes

• BZ - 100541 - CAN-2003-0466 off-by-one in wu-ftpd

CVEs

• CVE-2003-0466

References

(none)