RHSA-2009:1454 - Security Advisory

Topic

Updated tomcat5 packages that fix several security issues are now available
for JBoss Enterprise Web Server 1.0.0 for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 and 5.

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

[Updated 23 September 2009]
This erratum has been updated to include replacement packages for JBoss
Enterprise Web Server 1.0.0 for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4. The original
packages did not contain a fix for the low security impact issue
CVE-2009-0783. The packages for JBoss Enterprise Web Server 1.0.0 for Red
Hat Enterprise Linux 5 are unchanged as they included the fix for
CVE-2009-0783.

Description

Apache Tomcat is a servlet container for the Java Servlet and JavaServer
Pages (JSP) technologies.

It was discovered that Tomcat does not properly handle a certain character
and character sequence in cookie values. A remote attacker could use this
flaw to obtain sensitive information, such as session IDs, and then use
this information for session hijacking attacks. (CVE-2007-5333)

Note: The fix for the CVE-2007-5333 flaw changes the default cookie
processing behavior: With this update, version 0 cookies that contain
values that must be quoted to be valid are automatically changed to version
1 cookies. To reactivate the previous, but insecure behavior, add the
following entry to the "/etc/tomcat5/catalina.properties" file:

org.apache.tomcat.util.http.ServerCookie.VERSION_SWITCH=false

It was discovered that request dispatchers did not properly normalize user
requests that have trailing query strings, allowing remote attackers to
send specially-crafted requests that would cause an information leak.
(CVE-2008-5515)

A flaw was found in the way the Tomcat AJP (Apache JServ Protocol)
connector processes AJP connections. An attacker could use this flaw to
send specially-crafted requests that would cause a temporary denial of
service. (CVE-2009-0033)

It was discovered that the error checking methods of certain authentication
classes did not have sufficient error checking, allowing remote attackers
to enumerate (via brute force methods) usernames registered with
applications running on Tomcat when FORM-based authentication was used.
(CVE-2009-0580)

It was discovered that web applications containing their own XML parsers
could replace the XML parser Tomcat uses to parse configuration files. A
malicious web application running on a Tomcat instance could read or,
potentially, modify the configuration and XML-based data of other web
applications deployed on the same Tomcat instance. (CVE-2009-0783)

Users of Tomcat should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain
backported patches to resolve these issues. Tomcat must be restarted for
this update to take effect.

Solution

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

This update is available via Red Hat Network. Details on how to use
the Red Hat Network to apply this update are available at
http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/docs/DOC-11259

Affected Products

• JBoss Enterprise Web Server 1 for RHEL 5 x86_64
• JBoss Enterprise Web Server 1 for RHEL 5 i386

Fixes

• BZ - 427766 - CVE-2007-5333 Improve cookie parsing for tomcat5
• BZ - 493381 - CVE-2009-0033 tomcat6 Denial-Of-Service with AJP connection
• BZ - 503978 - CVE-2009-0580 tomcat6 Information disclosure in authentication classes
• BZ - 504153 - CVE-2009-0783 tomcat XML parser information disclosure
• BZ - 504753 - CVE-2008-5515 tomcat request dispatcher information disclosure vulnerability

CVEs

• CVE-2008-5515
• CVE-2009-0783
• CVE-2009-0580
• CVE-2009-0033
• CVE-2007-5333

References

• http://tomcat.apache.org/security-5.html
• http://www.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#important