Topic

Updated rpm packages that fix one security issue and one bug are now
available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having moderate
security impact. A Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base score,
which gives a detailed severity rating, is available from the CVE link in
the References section.

Description

The RPM Package Manager (RPM) is a command line driven package management
system capable of installing, uninstalling, verifying, querying, and
updating software packages.

It was discovered that RPM did not remove setuid and setgid bits set on
binaries when upgrading packages. A local attacker able to create hard
links to binaries could use this flaw to keep those binaries on the system,
at a specific version level and with the setuid or setgid bit set, even if
the package providing them was upgraded by a system administrator. This
could have security implications if a package was upgraded because of a
security flaw in a setuid or setgid program. (CVE-2010-2059)

This update also fixes the following bug:

• A memory leak in the communication between RPM and the Security-Enhanced

Linux (SELinux) subsystem, which could have caused extensive memory
consumption. In reported cases, this issue was triggered by running
rhn_check when errata were scheduled to be applied. (BZ#627630)

All users of rpm are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which
contain backported patches to correct these issues.

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 - 598775 - CVE-2010-2059 rpm: fails to drop SUID/SGID bits on package upgrade
• BZ - 627630 - rpm: selinux context initialization memory leak

CVEs

• CVE-2010-2059

References

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