RHSA-2006:0612 - Security Advisory

Topic

Updated krb5 packages are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 to
correct a privilege escalation security flaw.

This update has been rated as having important security impact by the Red
Hat Security Response Team.

Description

Kerberos is a network authentication system which allows clients and
servers to authenticate to each other through use of symmetric encryption
and a trusted third party, the KDC.

A flaw was found where some bundled Kerberos-aware applications would fail
to check the result of the setuid() call. On Linux 2.6 kernels, the
setuid() call can fail if certain user limits are hit. A local attacker
could manipulate their environment in such a way to get the applications to
continue to run as root, potentially leading to an escalation of
privileges. (CVE-2006-3083).

Users are advised to update to these erratum packages which contain a
backported fix to correct this issue.

Solution

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

This update is available via Red Hat Network. 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 4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 4 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 4 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 4 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 4 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 4 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 4 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 4 s390
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 4 ppc

Fixes

CVEs

• CVE-2006-3083

References

• http://www.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#important