Topic

An updated spice-xpi package that fixes two security issues and three bugs
is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having moderate
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

The Simple Protocol for Independent Computing Environments (SPICE) is a
remote display protocol used in Red Hat Enterprise Linux for viewing
virtualized guests running on the Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)
hypervisor, or on Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisor.

The spice-xpi package provides a plug-in that allows the SPICE client to
run from within Mozilla Firefox.

A race condition was found in the way the SPICE Firefox plug-in and the
SPICE client communicated. A local attacker could use this flaw to trick
the plug-in and the SPICE client into communicating over an
attacker-controlled socket, possibly gaining access to authentication
details, or resulting in a man-in-the-middle attack on the SPICE
connection. (CVE-2010-2792)

It was found that the SPICE Firefox plug-in used a predictable name for its
log file. A local attacker could use this flaw to conduct a symbolic link
attack, allowing them to overwrite arbitrary files accessible to the user
running Firefox. (CVE-2010-2794)

This update also fixes the following bugs:

• a bug prevented users of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5, with all updates

applied, from running the SPICE Firefox plug-in when using Firefox 3.6.4.
With this update, the plug-in works correctly with Firefox 3.6.4 and the
latest version in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5, Firefox 3.6.7. (BZ#618244)

• unused code has been removed during source code refactoring. This also

resolves a bug in the SPICE Firefox plug-in that caused it to close random
file descriptors. (BZ#594006, BZ#619067)

Note: This update should be installed together with the RHSA-2010:0632
qspice-client update: https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2010-0632.html

Users of spice-xpi should upgrade to this updated package, which contains
backported patches to correct these issues. After installing the update,
Firefox must be restarted for the changes 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 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 Server from RHUI 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 5 i386

Fixes

• BZ - 618244 - SPICE-XPI : Spice cannot be opened from RHEL5.5 client user-portal using FireFox 3.6.4.
• BZ - 620350 - CVE-2010-2792 spice-xpi/qspice-client unix socket race
• BZ - 620356 - CVE-2010-2794 spice-xpi symlink attack

CVEs

• CVE-2010-2792
• CVE-2010-2794

References

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