RHSA-2012:1090 - Security Advisory

Topic

Updated nss and nspr packages that fix two security issues, several bugs,
and add various enhancements 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

Network Security Services (NSS) is a set of libraries designed to support
the cross-platform development of security-enabled client and server
applications. Netscape Portable Runtime (NSPR) provides platform
independence for non-GUI operating system facilities.

A flaw was found in the way the ASN.1 (Abstract Syntax Notation One)
decoder in NSS handled zero length items. This flaw could cause the decoder
to incorrectly skip or replace certain items with a default value, or could
cause an application to crash if, for example, it received a
specially-crafted OCSP (Online Certificate Status Protocol) response.
(CVE-2012-0441)

It was found that a Certificate Authority (CA) issued a subordinate CA
certificate to its customer, that could be used to issue certificates for
any name. This update renders the subordinate CA certificate as untrusted.
(BZ#798533)

Note: The BZ#798533 fix only applies to applications using the NSS Builtin
Object Token. It does not render the certificates untrusted for
applications that use the NSS library, but do not use the NSS Builtin
Object Token.

In addition, the nspr package has been upgraded to upstream version 4.9.1,
and the nss package has been upgraded to upstream version 3.13.5. These
updates provide a number of bug fixes and enhancements over the previous
versions. (BZ#834220, BZ#834219)

All NSS and NSPR users should upgrade to these updated packages, which
correct these issues and add these enhancements. After installing the
update, applications using NSS and NSPR 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
https://access.redhat.com/knowledge/articles/11258

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 - 798533 - nss: Distrust MITM subCAs issued by TrustWave
• BZ - 827833 - CVE-2012-0441 nss: NSS parsing errors with zero length items
• BZ - 834219 - Update RHEL 5.x to NSS 3.13.5 and NSPR 4.9.1 for Mozilla 10.0.6
• BZ - 834220 - Update RHEL 5.x to NSPR 4.9.1 for Mozilla 10.0.6

CVEs

• CVE-2012-0441

References

• https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#moderate
• http://www.mozilla.org/security/announce/2012/mfsa2012-39.html