RHSA-2009:1616 - Security Advisory

Topic

Updated tomcat packages that fix several security issues are now available
for Red Hat Network Satellite Server 5.2 and 5.3.

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

Description

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

This update corrects several security vulnerabilities in the Tomcat
component shipped as part of Red Hat Network Satellite Server. In a typical
operating environment, Tomcat is not exposed to users of Satellite Server
in a vulnerable manner: By default, only Satellite Server applications are
running on Tomcat. This update will reduce risk in unique Satellite Server
environments.

It was discovered that the Red Hat Security Advisory RHSA-2007:1069 did not
address all possible flaws in the way Tomcat handles certain characters and
character sequences 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 Red Hat Network Satellite Server 5.2 and 5.3 are advised to
upgrade to these updated tomcat 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

• Red Hat Network Satellite 5.2 (for RHEL Mainframe) 5.2 s390x
• Red Hat Network Satellite 5.2 (for RHEL Mainframe) 5.2 s390
• Red Hat Network Satellite 5.2 (for RHEL Server) 5.2 x86_64
• Red Hat Network Satellite 5.2 (for RHEL Server) 5.2 i386
• Red Hat Network Satellite 5.3 (for RHEL Mainframe) 5.3 s390x
• Red Hat Network Satellite 5.3 (for RHEL Mainframe) 5.3 s390
• Red Hat Network Satellite 5.3 (for RHEL Server) 5.3 x86_64
• Red Hat Network Satellite 5.3 (for RHEL Server) 5.3 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-2007-5333
• CVE-2009-0033
• CVE-2009-0580
• CVE-2009-0783
• CVE-2008-5515

References

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