RHSA-2010:0580 - Security Advisory

Topic

Updated tomcat5 packages that fix multiple security issues are now
available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having
important security impact. Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base
scores, which give detailed severity ratings, are available for each
vulnerability from the CVE links in the References section.

Description

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

A flaw was found in the way Tomcat handled the Transfer-Encoding header in
HTTP requests. A specially-crafted HTTP request could prevent Tomcat from
sending replies, or cause Tomcat to return truncated replies, or replies
containing data related to the requests of other users, for all subsequent
HTTP requests. (CVE-2010-2227)

The Tomcat security update RHSA-2009:1164 did not, unlike the erratum text
stated, provide a fix for CVE-2009-0781, a cross-site scripting (XSS) flaw
in the examples calendar application. With some web browsers, remote
attackers could use this flaw to inject arbitrary web script or HTML via
the "time" parameter. (CVE-2009-2696)

Two directory traversal flaws were found in the Tomcat deployment process.
A specially-crafted WAR file could, when deployed, cause a file to be
created outside of the web root into any directory writable by the Tomcat
user, or could lead to the deletion of files in the Tomcat host's work
directory. (CVE-2009-2693, CVE-2009-2902)

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 all previously-released errata
relevant to your system have been applied.

This update is available via the 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 Enterprise Linux Server 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 5 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 5 ppc
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 5 i386

Fixes

• BZ - 559738 - CVE-2009-2693 tomcat: unexpected file deletion and/or alteration
• BZ - 559761 - CVE-2009-2902 tomcat: unexpected file deletion in work directory
• BZ - 612799 - CVE-2010-2227 tomcat: information leak vulnerability in the handling of 'Transfer-Encoding' header
• BZ - 616717 - CVE-2009-2696 tomcat: missing fix for CVE-2009-0781

CVEs

• CVE-2009-2902
• CVE-2009-2693
• CVE-2010-2227
• CVE-2009-2696

References

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