RHSA-2011:1821 - Security Advisory

Topic

Updated pidgin packages that fix multiple security issues are now available
for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

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

Pidgin is an instant messaging program which can log in to multiple
accounts on multiple instant messaging networks simultaneously.

An input sanitization flaw was found in the way the AOL Open System for
Communication in Realtime (OSCAR) protocol plug-in in Pidgin, used by the
AOL ICQ and AIM instant messaging systems, escaped certain UTF-8
characters. A remote attacker could use this flaw to crash Pidgin via a
specially-crafted OSCAR message. (CVE-2011-4601)

Multiple NULL pointer dereference flaws were found in the Jingle extension
of the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) protocol plug-in
in Pidgin. A remote attacker could use these flaws to crash Pidgin via a
specially-crafted Jingle multimedia message. (CVE-2011-4602)

Red Hat would like to thank the Pidgin project for reporting these issues.
Upstream acknowledges Evgeny Boger as the original reporter of
CVE-2011-4601, and Thijs Alkemade as the original reporter of
CVE-2011-4602.

All Pidgin users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain
backported patches to resolve these issues. Pidgin 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
https://access.redhat.com/kb/docs/DOC-11259

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 6.2 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 6.2 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - AUS 6.2 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 6 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 6.2 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support Extension 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support Extension 6 i386

Fixes

• BZ - 761510 - CVE-2011-4602 pidgin: Multiple NULL pointer deference flaws by processing certain Jingle stanzas in the XMPP protocol plug-in
• BZ - 761517 - CVE-2011-4601 pidgin (libpurple): Invalid UTF-8 string handling in OSCAR messages

CVEs

• CVE-2011-4601
• CVE-2011-4602

References

• https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#moderate