Use-after-free vulnerability in the fasync_helper function in fs/fcntl.c in the Linux kernel before 2.6.33-rc4-git1 allows local users to gain privileges via vectors that include enabling O_ASYNC (aka FASYNC or FIOASYNC) on a locked file, and then closing this file.

The remote VMware ESX / ESXi host is missing a security-related patch.
It is, therefore, affected by multiple vulnerabilities, including remote code execution vulnerabilities, in several components and third-party libraries :

  - libpng
  - VMnc Codec
  - vmrun
  - VMware Remote Console (VMrc)
  - VMware Tools
  - vmware-authd

The remote OracleVM system is missing necessary patches to address critical security updates : please see Oracle VM Security Advisory OVMSA-2013-0039 for details.

From Red Hat Security Advisory 2010:0046 :

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

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

The kernel packages contain the Linux kernel, the core of any Linux operating system.

Security fixes :

* an array index error was found in the gdth driver. A local user could send a specially crafted IOCTL request that would cause a denial of service or, possibly, privilege escalation. (CVE-2009-3080, Important)

* a flaw was found in the FUSE implementation. When a system is low on memory, fuse_put_request() could dereference an invalid pointer, possibly leading to a local denial of service or privilege escalation.
(CVE-2009-4021, Important)

* Tavis Ormandy discovered a deficiency in the fasync_helper() implementation. This could allow a local, unprivileged user to leverage a use-after-free of locked, asynchronous file descriptors to cause a denial of service or privilege escalation. (CVE-2009-4141, Important)

* the Parallels Virtuozzo Containers team reported the RHSA-2009:1243 update introduced two flaws in the routing implementation. If an attacker was able to cause a large enough number of collisions in the routing hash table (via specially crafted packets) for the emergency route flush to trigger, a deadlock could occur. Secondly, if the kernel routing cache was disabled, an uninitialized pointer would be left behind after a route lookup, leading to a kernel panic.
(CVE-2009-4272, Important)

* the RHSA-2009:0225 update introduced a rewrite attack flaw in the do_coredump() function. A local attacker able to guess the file name a process is going to dump its core to, prior to the process crashing, could use this flaw to append data to the dumped core file. This issue only affects systems that have '/proc/sys/fs/suid_dumpable' set to 2 (the default value is 0). (CVE-2006-6304, Moderate)

The fix for CVE-2006-6304 changes the expected behavior: With suid_dumpable set to 2, the core file will not be recorded if the file already exists. For example, core files will not be overwritten on subsequent crashes of processes whose core files map to the same name.

* an information leak was found in the Linux kernel. On AMD64 systems, 32-bit processes could access and read certain 64-bit registers by temporarily switching themselves to 64-bit mode. (CVE-2009-2910, Moderate)

* the RHBA-2008:0314 update introduced N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV) support in the qla2xxx driver, resulting in two new sysfs pseudo files, '/sys/class/scsi_host/[a qla2xxx host]/vport_create' and 'vport_delete'. These two files were world-writable by default, allowing a local user to change SCSI host attributes. This flaw only affects systems using the qla2xxx driver and NPIV capable hardware.
(CVE-2009-3556, Moderate)

* permission issues were found in the megaraid_sas driver. The 'dbg_lvl' and 'poll_mode_io' files on the sysfs file system ('/sys/') had world-writable permissions. This could allow local, unprivileged users to change the behavior of the driver. (CVE-2009-3889, CVE-2009-3939, Moderate)

* a NULL pointer dereference flaw was found in the firewire-ohci driver used for OHCI compliant IEEE 1394 controllers. A local, unprivileged user with access to /dev/fw* files could issue certain IOCTL calls, causing a denial of service or privilege escalation. The FireWire modules are blacklisted by default, and if enabled, only root has access to the files noted above by default. (CVE-2009-4138, Moderate)

* a buffer overflow flaw was found in the hfs_bnode_read() function in the HFS file system implementation. This could lead to a denial of service if a user browsed a specially crafted HFS file system, for example, by running 'ls'. (CVE-2009-4020, Low)

Bug fix documentation for this update will be available shortly from www.redhat.com/docs/en-US/errata/RHSA-2010-0046/Kernel_Security_Update / index.html

Users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches to correct these issues. The system must be rebooted for this update to take effect.

Updated kernel packages that fix three security issues and multiple bugs are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 Extended Update Support.

The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having important 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.

The kernel packages contain the Linux kernel, the core of any Linux operating system.

This update fixes the following security issues :

* a deficiency was found in the fasync_helper() implementation. This could allow a local, unprivileged user to leverage a use-after-free of locked, asynchronous file descriptors to cause a denial of service or privilege escalation. (CVE-2009-4141, Important)

* a NULL pointer dereference flaw was found in the sctp_rcv_ootb() function in the Linux kernel Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) implementation. A remote attacker could send a specially crafted SCTP packet to a target system, resulting in a denial of service. (CVE-2010-0008, Important)

* a NULL pointer dereference flaw was found in the ip6_dst_lookup_tail() function in the Linux kernel. An attacker on the local network could trigger this flaw by sending IPv6 traffic to a target system, leading to a system crash (kernel OOPS) if dst->neighbour is NULL on the target system when receiving an IPv6 packet. (CVE-2010-0437, Important)

This update also fixes the following bugs :

* programs compiled on x86, and that also call sched_rr_get_interval(), were silently corrupted when run on 64-bit systems. With this update, when such programs attempt to call sched_rr_get_interval() on 64-bit systems, sys32_sched_rr_get_interval() is called instead, which resolves this issue. (BZ#557683)

* the fix for CVE-2009-4538 provided by RHSA-2010:0053 introduced a regression, preventing Wake on LAN (WoL) working for network devices using the Intel PRO/1000 Linux driver, e1000e. Attempting to configure WoL for such devices resulted in the following error, even when configuring valid options :

'Cannot set new wake-on-lan settings: Operation not supported not setting wol'

This update resolves this regression, and WoL now works as expected for network devices using the e1000e driver. (BZ#559334)

* a number of bugs have been fixed in the copy_user routines for Intel 64 and AMD64 systems, one of which could have possibly led to data corruption. (BZ#568307)

* on some systems, a race condition in the inode-based file event notifications implementation caused soft lockups and the following messages :

'BUG: warning at fs/inotify.c:181/set_dentry_child_flags()' 'BUG: soft lockup - CPU#[x] stuck for 10s!'

This update resolves this race condition, and also removes the inotify debugging code from the kernel, due to race conditions in that code.
(BZ#568663)

Users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches to correct these issues. The system must be rebooted for this update to take effect.

Kernel security update for Fedora 11: CVE-2009-4141 CVE-2009-4536 CVE-2009-4537 CVE-2009-4538 CVE-2010-0307 Bugs: 559100 kernel:
tty->pgrp races 521265 oops in VIA padlock driver

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.

a. Service Console update for COS kernel

   Updated COS package 'kernel' addresses the security issues that are    fixed through versions 2.6.18-164.11.1.

   The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org)    has assigned the names CVE-2009-2695, CVE-2009-2908, CVE-2009-3228,    CVE-2009-3286, CVE-2009-3547, CVE-2009-3613 to the security issues    fixed in kernel 2.6.18-164.6.1

   The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org)    has assigned the names CVE-2009-3612, CVE-2009-3620, CVE-2009-3621,    CVE-2009-3726 to the security issues fixed in kernel 2.6.18-164.9.1.

   The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org)    has assigned the names CVE-2007-4567, CVE-2009-4536, CVE-2009-4537,    CVE-2009-4538 to the security issues fixed in kernel 2.6.18-164.10.1

   The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org)    has assigned the names CVE-2006-6304, CVE-2009-2910, CVE-2009-3080,    CVE-2009-3556, CVE-2009-3889, CVE-2009-3939, CVE-2009-4020,    CVE-2009-4021, CVE-2009-4138, CVE-2009-4141, and CVE-2009-4272 to    the security issues fixed in kernel 2.6.18-164.11.1.

b. ESXi userworld update for ntp

   The Network Time Protocol (NTP) is used to synchronize the time of    a computer client or server to another server or reference time    source.

   A vulnerability in ntpd could allow a remote attacker to cause a    denial of service (CPU and bandwidth consumption) by using    MODE_PRIVATE to send a spoofed (1) request or (2) response packet    that triggers a continuous exchange of MODE_PRIVATE error responses    between two NTP daemons.

   The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures Project (cve.mitre.org)    has assigned the name CVE-2009-3563 to this issue.

c. Service Console package openssl updated to 0.9.8e-12.el5_4.1

   OpenSSL is a toolkit implementing SSL v2/v3 and TLS protocols with    full-strength cryptography world-wide.

   A memory leak in the zlib could allow a remote attacker to cause a    denial of service (memory consumption) via vectors that trigger    incorrect calls to the CRYPTO_cleanup_all_ex_data function.

   The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures Project (cve.mitre.org)    has assigned the name CVE-2009-4355 to this issue.

   A vulnerability was discovered which may allow remote attackers to    spoof certificates by using MD2 design flaws to generate a hash    collision in less than brute-force time. NOTE: the scope of this    issue is currently limited because the amount of computation    required is still large.

   The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures Project (cve.mitre.org)    has assigned the name CVE-2009-2409 to this issue.

   This update also includes security fixes that were first addressed    in version openssl-0.9.8e-12.el5.i386.rpm.

   The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures Project (cve.mitre.org)    has assigned the names CVE-2009-0590, CVE-2009-1377, CVE-2009-1378,    CVE-2009-1379, CVE-2009-1386 and CVE-2009-1387 to these issues.

d. Service Console update for krb5 to 1.6.1-36.el5_4.1 and pam_krb5 to    2.2.14-15.

   Kerberos is a network authentication protocol. It is designed to    provide strong authentication for client/server applications by    using secret-key cryptography.

   Multiple integer underflows in the AES and RC4 functionality in the    crypto library could allow remote attackers to cause a denial of    service (daemon crash) or possibly execute arbitrary code by    providing ciphertext with a length that is too short to be valid.

   The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures Project (cve.mitre.org)    has assigned the name CVE-2009-4212 to this issue.

   The service console package for pam_krb5 is updated to version    pam_krb5-2.2.14-15. This update fixes a flaw found in pam_krb5. In    some non-default configurations (specifically, where pam_krb5 would    be the first module to prompt for a password), a remote attacker    could use this flaw to recognize valid usernames, which would aid a    dictionary-based password guess attack.

   The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures Project (cve.mitre.org)    has assigned the name CVE-2009-1384 to this issue.

e. Service Console package bind updated to 9.3.6-4.P1.el5_4.2

   BIND (Berkeley Internet Name Daemon) is by far the most widely used    Domain Name System (DNS) software on the Internet.

   A vulnerability was discovered which could allow remote attacker to    add the Authenticated Data (AD) flag to a forged NXDOMAIN response    for an existing domain.

   The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures Project (cve.mitre.org)    has assigned the name CVE-2010-0097 to this issue.

   A vulnerability was discovered which could allow remote attackers    to conduct DNS cache poisoning attacks by receiving a recursive    client query and sending a response that contains CNAME or DNAME    records, which do not have the intended validation before caching.

   The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures Project (cve.mitre.org)    has assigned the name CVE-2010-0290 to this issue.

   A vulnerability was found in the way that bind handles out-of-    bailiwick data accompanying a secure response without re-fetching    from the original source, which could allow remote attackers to    have an unspecified impact via a crafted response.

   The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures Project (cve.mitre.org)    has assigned the name CVE-2010-0382 to this issue.

   NOTE: ESX does not use the BIND name service daemon by default.

f. Service Console package gcc updated to 3.2.3-60

   The GNU Compiler Collection includes front ends for C, C++,    Objective-C, Fortran, Java, and Ada, as well as libraries for these    languages

   GNU Libtool's ltdl.c attempts to open .la library files in the    current working directory.  This could allow a local user to gain    privileges via a Trojan horse file.  The GNU C Compiler collection    (gcc) provided in ESX contains a statically linked version of the    vulnerable code, and is being replaced.

   The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures Project (cve.mitre.org)    has assigned the name CVE-2009-3736 to this issue.

g. Service Console package gzip update to 1.3.3-15.rhel3

   gzip is a software application used for file compression

   An integer underflow in gzip's unlzw function on 64-bit platforms    may allow a remote attacker to trigger an array index error    leading to a denial of service (application crash) or possibly    execute arbitrary code via a crafted LZW compressed file.

   The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures Project (cve.mitre.org)    has assigned the name CVE-2010-0001 to this issue.

h. Service Console package sudo updated to 1.6.9p17-6.el5_4

   Sudo (su 'do') allows a system administrator to delegate authority    to give certain users (or groups of users) the ability to run some    (or all) commands as root or another user while providing an audit    trail of the commands and their arguments.

   When a pseudo-command is enabled, sudo permits a match between the    name of the pseudo-command and the name of an executable file in an    arbitrary directory, which allows local users to gain privileges    via a crafted executable file.

   The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures Project (cve.mitre.org)    has assigned the name CVE-2010-0426 to this issue.

   When the runas_default option is used, sudo does not properly set    group memberships, which allows local users to gain privileges via    a sudo command.

   The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures Project (cve.mitre.org)    has assigned the name CVE-2010-0427 to this issue.

The Linux kernel for openSUSE 11.2 was updated to 2.6.31.12 to fix the following bugs and security issues :

  - The permission of the devtmpfs root directory was     incorrectly 1777 (instead of 755). If it was used, local     attackers could escalate privileges. (openSUSE 11.2 does     not use this filesystem by default). (CVE-2010-0299)

  - The poll_mode_io file for the megaraid_sas driver in the     Linux kernel 2.6.31.6 and earlier has world-writable     permissions, which allows local users to change the I/O     mode of the driver by modifying this file.
    (CVE-2009-3939)

  - ebtables was lacking a CAP_NET_ADMIN check, making it     possible for local unprivileged attackers to modify the     network bridge management. (CVE-2010-0007)

  - An information leakage on fatal signals on x86_64     machines was fixed. (CVE-2010-0003)

  - A race condition in fasync handling could be used by     local attackers to crash the machine or potentially     execute code. (CVE-2009-4141)

  - The ipv6_hop_jumbo function in net/ipv6/exthdrs.c in the     Linux kernel before 2.6.32.4, when network namespaces     are enabled, allows remote attackers to cause a denial     of service (NULL pointer dereference) via an invalid     IPv6 jumbogram. (CVE-2010-0006)

  - drivers/net/e1000/e1000_main.c in the e1000 driver in     the Linux kernel 2.6.32.3 and earlier handles Ethernet     frames that exceed the MTU by processing certain     trailing payload data as if it were a complete frame,     which allows remote attackers to bypass packet filters     via a large packet with a crafted payload.
    (CVE-2009-4536)

  - drivers/net/e1000e/netdev.c in the e1000e driver in the     Linux kernel 2.6.32.3 and earlier does not properly     check the size of an Ethernet frame that exceeds the     MTU, which allows remote attackers to have an     unspecified impact via crafted packets. (CVE-2009-4538)

Amerigo Wang and Eric Sesterhenn discovered that the HFS and ext4 filesystems did not correctly check certain disk structures. If a user were tricked into mounting a specially crafted filesystem, a remote attacker could crash the system or gain root privileges.
(CVE-2009-4020, CVE-2009-4308)

It was discovered that FUSE did not correctly check certain requests.
A local attacker with access to FUSE mounts could exploit this to crash the system or possibly gain root privileges. Ubuntu 9.10 was not affected. (CVE-2009-4021)

It was discovered that KVM did not correctly decode certain guest instructions. A local attacker in a guest could exploit this to trigger high scheduling latency in the host, leading to a denial of service. Ubuntu 6.06 was not affected. (CVE-2009-4031)

It was discovered that the OHCI fireware driver did not correctly handle certain ioctls. A local attacker could exploit this to crash the system, or possibly gain root privileges. Ubuntu 6.06 was not affected. (CVE-2009-4138)

Tavis Ormandy discovered that the kernel did not correctly handle O_ASYNC on locked files. A local attacker could exploit this to gain root privileges. Only Ubuntu 9.04 and 9.10 were affected.
(CVE-2009-4141)

Neil Horman and Eugene Teo discovered that the e1000 and e1000e network drivers did not correctly check the size of Ethernet frames.
An attacker on the local network could send specially crafted traffic to bypass packet filters, crash the system, or possibly gain root privileges. (CVE-2009-4536, CVE-2009-4538)

It was discovered that 'print-fatal-signals' reporting could show arbitrary kernel memory contents. A local attacker could exploit this, leading to a loss of privacy. By default this is disabled in Ubuntu and did not affect Ubuntu 6.06. (CVE-2010-0003)

Olli Jarva and Tuomo Untinen discovered that IPv6 did not correctly handle jumbo frames. A remote attacker could exploit this to crash the system, leading to a denial of service. Only Ubuntu 9.04 and 9.10 were affected. (CVE-2010-0006)

Florian Westphal discovered that bridging netfilter rules could be modified by unprivileged users. A local attacker could disrupt network traffic, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2010-0007)

Al Viro discovered that certain mremap operations could leak kernel memory. A local attacker could exploit this to consume all available memory, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2010-0291).

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.

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

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

The kernel packages contain the Linux kernel, the core of any Linux operating system.

Security fixes :

* an array index error was found in the gdth driver. A local user could send a specially crafted IOCTL request that would cause a denial of service or, possibly, privilege escalation. (CVE-2009-3080, Important)

* a flaw was found in the FUSE implementation. When a system is low on memory, fuse_put_request() could dereference an invalid pointer, possibly leading to a local denial of service or privilege escalation.
(CVE-2009-4021, Important)

* Tavis Ormandy discovered a deficiency in the fasync_helper() implementation. This could allow a local, unprivileged user to leverage a use-after-free of locked, asynchronous file descriptors to cause a denial of service or privilege escalation. (CVE-2009-4141, Important)

* the Parallels Virtuozzo Containers team reported the RHSA-2009:1243 update introduced two flaws in the routing implementation. If an attacker was able to cause a large enough number of collisions in the routing hash table (via specially crafted packets) for the emergency route flush to trigger, a deadlock could occur. Secondly, if the kernel routing cache was disabled, an uninitialized pointer would be left behind after a route lookup, leading to a kernel panic.
(CVE-2009-4272, Important)

* the RHSA-2009:0225 update introduced a rewrite attack flaw in the do_coredump() function. A local attacker able to guess the file name a process is going to dump its core to, prior to the process crashing, could use this flaw to append data to the dumped core file. This issue only affects systems that have '/proc/sys/fs/suid_dumpable' set to 2 (the default value is 0). (CVE-2006-6304, Moderate)

The fix for CVE-2006-6304 changes the expected behavior: With suid_dumpable set to 2, the core file will not be recorded if the file already exists. For example, core files will not be overwritten on subsequent crashes of processes whose core files map to the same name.

* an information leak was found in the Linux kernel. On AMD64 systems, 32-bit processes could access and read certain 64-bit registers by temporarily switching themselves to 64-bit mode. (CVE-2009-2910, Moderate)

* the RHBA-2008:0314 update introduced N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV) support in the qla2xxx driver, resulting in two new sysfs pseudo files, '/sys/class/scsi_host/[a qla2xxx host]/vport_create' and 'vport_delete'. These two files were world-writable by default, allowing a local user to change SCSI host attributes. This flaw only affects systems using the qla2xxx driver and NPIV capable hardware.
(CVE-2009-3556, Moderate)

* permission issues were found in the megaraid_sas driver. The 'dbg_lvl' and 'poll_mode_io' files on the sysfs file system ('/sys/') had world-writable permissions. This could allow local, unprivileged users to change the behavior of the driver. (CVE-2009-3889, CVE-2009-3939, Moderate)

* a NULL pointer dereference flaw was found in the firewire-ohci driver used for OHCI compliant IEEE 1394 controllers. A local, unprivileged user with access to /dev/fw* files could issue certain IOCTL calls, causing a denial of service or privilege escalation. The FireWire modules are blacklisted by default, and if enabled, only root has access to the files noted above by default. (CVE-2009-4138, Moderate)

* a buffer overflow flaw was found in the hfs_bnode_read() function in the HFS file system implementation. This could lead to a denial of service if a user browsed a specially crafted HFS file system, for example, by running 'ls'. (CVE-2009-4020, Low)

Bug fix documentation for this update will be available shortly from www.redhat.com/docs/en-US/errata/RHSA-2010-0046/Kernel_Security_Update / index.html

Users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches to correct these issues. The system must be rebooted for this update to take effect.

The remote CentOS system is missing a security update which has been documented in Red Hat advisory RHSA-2010-0046.
IAVA Reference : 2010-A-0001
IAVA Reference : 2010-A-0015

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
89740	VMware ESX / ESXi Third-Party Libraries and Components (VMSA-2010-0009) (remote check)	Nessus	VMware ESX Local Security Checks	critical
79507	OracleVM 2.2 : kernel (OVMSA-2013-0039)	Nessus	OracleVM Local Security Checks	high
67988	Oracle Linux 5 : kernel (ELSA-2010-0046)	Nessus	Oracle Linux Local Security Checks	high
63922	RHEL 5 : kernel (RHSA-2010:0149)	Nessus	Red Hat Local Security Checks	high
47258	Fedora 11 : kernel-2.6.30.10-105.2.13.fc11 (2010-1500)	Nessus	Fedora Local Security Checks	critical
46765	VMSA-2010-0009 : ESXi ntp and ESX Service Console third-party updates	Nessus	VMware ESX Local Security Checks	high
44411	SuSE 11.2 Security Update: kernel (2010-01-28)	Nessus	SuSE Local Security Checks	critical
44399	Ubuntu 6.06 LTS / 8.04 LTS / 8.10 / 9.04 / 9.10 : linux, linux-source-2.6.15 vulnerabilities (USN-894-1)	Nessus	Ubuntu Local Security Checks	critical
44096	CentOS 5 : kernel (CESA-2010:0046)	Nessus	CentOS Local Security Checks	high
44062	RHEL 5 : kernel (RHSA-2010:0046)	Nessus	Red Hat Local Security Checks	high
801485	CentOS RHSA-2010-0046 Security Check	Log Correlation Engine	Generic	high

Detections

Analytics

CVE-2009-4141

high

Tenable Plugins

critical

high

high

high

critical

high

critical

critical

high

high

high