The originates_from_local_legacy_unicast_socket function (avahi-core/server.c) in avahi-daemon in Avahi before 0.6.24 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via a crafted mDNS packet with a source port of 0, which triggers an assertion failure.

From Red Hat Security Advisory 2009:0013 :

Updated avahi packages that fix a security issue are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

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

Avahi is an implementation of the DNS Service Discovery and Multicast DNS specifications for Zeroconf Networking. It facilitates service discovery on a local network. Avahi and Avahi-aware applications allow you to plug your computer into a network and, with no configuration, view other people to chat with, see printers to print to, and find shared files on other computers.

Hugo Dias discovered a denial of service flaw in avahi-daemon. A remote attacker on the same local area network (LAN) could send a specially crafted mDNS (Multicast DNS) packet that would cause avahi-daemon to exit unexpectedly due to a failed assertion check.
(CVE-2008-5081)

All users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which contain a backported patch which resolves this issue. After installing the update, avahi-daemon will be restarted automatically.

Hugo Dias discovered a denial of service flaw in avahi-daemon. A remote attacker on the same local area network (LAN) could send a specially crafted mDNS (Multicast DNS) packet that would cause avahi-daemon to exit unexpectedly due to a failed assertion check.
(CVE-2008-5081)

After installing the update, the avahi-daemon will be restarted automatically.

Specially crafted mDNS packets could crash the Avahi daemon.
(CVE-2008-5081)

Updated avahi packages that fix a security issue are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

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

Avahi is an implementation of the DNS Service Discovery and Multicast DNS specifications for Zeroconf Networking. It facilitates service discovery on a local network. Avahi and Avahi-aware applications allow you to plug your computer into a network and, with no configuration, view other people to chat with, see printers to print to, and find shared files on other computers.

Hugo Dias discovered a denial of service flaw in avahi-daemon. A remote attacker on the same local area network (LAN) could send a specially crafted mDNS (Multicast DNS) packet that would cause avahi-daemon to exit unexpectedly due to a failed assertion check.
(CVE-2008-5081)

All users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which contain a backported patch which resolves this issue. After installing the update, avahi-daemon will be restarted automatically.

Specially crafted mDNS packets could crash the Avahi daemon (CVE-2008-5081).

This version includes five patches backported from the recently released 0.6.24 :

  - A trivial security fix for CVE-2008-5081, rhbz 475964. -     A trivial fix for the threaded event loop, avahi bts     #251 - A trivial fix unbreaking the --force-bind logic     of avahi-autoipd, avahi bts #209 - A trivial fix to make     sure we never end up with an invalid IP address in     avahi-autoipd, avahi bts #231

  - A trivial change to include the host name of the sender     when we receive bogus mDNS packets, rhbz #438013 All     changes are 'trivial', i.e. very simple in nature.

Note that Tenable Network Security has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Fedora security advisory. Tenable has attempted to automatically clean and format it as much as possible without introducing additional issues.

Emanuele Aina discovered that Avahi did not properly validate its input when processing data over D-Bus. A local attacker could send an empty TXT message via D-Bus and cause a denial of service (failed assertion). This issue only affected Ubuntu 6.06 LTS. (CVE-2007-3372)

Hugo Dias discovered that Avahi did not properly verify its input when processing mDNS packets. A remote attacker could send a crafted mDNS packet and cause a denial of service (assertion failure).
(CVE-2008-5081).

Note that Tenable Network Security has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Ubuntu security advisory. Tenable has attempted to automatically clean and format it as much as possible without introducing additional issues.

A vulnerability has been discovered in Avahi before 0.6.24, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via a crafted mDNS packet with a source port of 0 (CVE-2008-5081).

The updated packages have been patched to prevent this.

The remote host is affected by the vulnerability described in GLSA-200901-11 (Avahi: Denial of Service)

    Hugo Dias reported a failed assertion in the     originates_from_local_legacy_unicast_socket() function in     avahi-core/server.c when processing mDNS packets with a source port of     0.
  Impact :

    A remote attacker could send specially crafted packets to the daemon,     leading to its crash.
  Workaround :

    There is no known workaround at this time.

Two denial of service conditions were discovered in avahi, a Multicast DNS implementation.

Huge Dias discovered that the avahi daemon aborts with an assert error if it encounters a UDP packet with source port 0 (CVE-2008-5081 ).

It was discovered that the avahi daemon aborts with an assert error if it receives an empty TXT record over D-Bus (CVE-2007-3372 ).

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
67789	Oracle Linux 5 : avahi (ELSA-2009-0013)	Nessus	Oracle Linux Local Security Checks	medium
60518	Scientific Linux Security Update : avahi on SL5.x i386/x86_64	Nessus	Scientific Linux Local Security Checks	medium
51718	SuSE 10 Security Update : avahi (ZYPP Patch Number 5870)	Nessus	SuSE Local Security Checks	medium
43726	CentOS 5 : avahi (CESA-2009:0013)	Nessus	CentOS Local Security Checks	medium
40192	openSUSE Security Update : avahi (avahi-384)	Nessus	SuSE Local Security Checks	medium
39919	openSUSE Security Update : avahi (avahi-384)	Nessus	SuSE Local Security Checks	medium
37488	Fedora 10 : avahi-0.6.22-12.fc10 (2008-11351)	Nessus	Fedora Local Security Checks	medium
36657	Ubuntu 6.06 LTS / 7.10 / 8.04 LTS / 8.10 : avahi vulnerabilities (USN-696-1)	Nessus	Ubuntu Local Security Checks	medium
36599	Mandriva Linux Security Advisory : avahi (MDVSA-2009:031)	Nessus	Mandriva Local Security Checks	medium
35565	openSUSE 10 Security Update : avahi (avahi-5882)	Nessus	SuSE Local Security Checks	medium
35380	GLSA-200901-11 : Avahi: Denial of Service	Nessus	Gentoo Local Security Checks	medium
35358	RHEL 5 : avahi (RHSA-2009:0013)	Nessus	Red Hat Local Security Checks	medium
35253	Debian DSA-1690-1 : avahi - assert errors	Nessus	Debian Local Security Checks	medium

Detections

Analytics

CVE-2008-5081

high

Tenable Plugins

medium

medium

medium

medium

medium

medium

medium

medium

medium

medium

medium

medium

medium