RHEL 4 / 5 : pidgin (RHSA-2008:1023)

medium Nessus Plugin ID 35181

Synopsis

The remote Red Hat host is missing one or more security updates.

Description

Updated Pidgin packages that fix several security issues and bugs are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 and 5.

This update has been rated as having moderate security impact by the Red Hat Security Response Team.

Pidgin is a multi-protocol Internet Messaging client.

A denial-of-service flaw was found in Pidgin's MSN protocol handler.
If a remote user was able to send, and the Pidgin user accepted, a carefully-crafted file request, it could result in Pidgin crashing.
(CVE-2008-2955)

A denial-of-service flaw was found in Pidgin's Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) request handling. A malicious UPnP server could send a request to Pidgin, causing it to download an excessive amount of data, consuming all available memory or disk space. (CVE-2008-2957)

A flaw was found in the way Pidgin handled SSL certificates. The NSS SSL implementation in Pidgin did not properly verify the authenticity of SSL certificates. This could have resulted in users unknowingly connecting to a malicious SSL service. (CVE-2008-3532)

In addition, this update upgrades pidgin from version 2.3.1 to version 2.5.2, with many additional stability and functionality fixes from the Pidgin Project.

Note: the Secure Internet Live Conferencing (SILC) chat network protocol has recently changed, affecting all versions of pidgin shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Pidgin cannot currently connect to the latest version of the SILC server (1.1.14): it fails to properly exchange keys during initial login. This update does not correct this. Red Hat Bugzilla #474212 (linked to in the References section) has more information.

Note: after the errata packages are installed, Pidgin must be restarted for the update to take effect.

All Pidgin users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contains Pidgin version 2.5.2 and resolves these issues.

Solution

Update the affected packages.

See Also

https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/cve-2008-2955

https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/cve-2008-2957

https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/cve-2008-3532

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=474212

https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2008:1023

Plugin Details

Severity: Medium

ID: 35181

File Name: redhat-RHSA-2008-1023.nasl

Version: 1.24

Type: local

Agent: unix

Published: 12/16/2008

Updated: 1/14/2021

Supported Sensors: Agentless Assessment, Frictionless Assessment Agent, Frictionless Assessment AWS, Frictionless Assessment Azure, Nessus Agent, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 6.7

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 6.8

Vector: CVSS2#AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:finch, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:finch-devel, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:libpurple, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:libpurple-devel, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:libpurple-perl, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:libpurple-tcl, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:pidgin, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:pidgin-devel, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:pidgin-perl, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:4, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:4.7, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:5, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:5.2

Required KB Items: Host/local_checks_enabled, Host/RedHat/release, Host/RedHat/rpm-list, Host/cpu

Patch Publication Date: 12/15/2008

Vulnerability Publication Date: 7/1/2008

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2008-2955, CVE-2008-2957, CVE-2008-3532

CWE: 20, 310

RHSA: 2008:1023