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Debian DSA-044-1 : mailx

high Nessus Plugin ID 14881

Synopsis

The remote Debian host is missing a security-related update.

Description

The mail program (a simple tool to read and send email) as distributed with Debian GNU/Linux 2.2 has a buffer overflow in the input parsing code. Since mail is installed setgid mail by default this allowed local users to use it to gain access to mail group.

Since the mail code was never written to be secure fixing it properly would mean a large rewrite. Instead of doing this we decided to no longer install it setgid. This means that it can no longer lock your mailbox properly on systems for which you need group mail to write to the mailspool, but it will still work for sending email.

Solution

This has been fixed in mailx version 8.1.1-10.1.5. If you have suidmanager installed you can also make this manually with the following command:suidregister /usr/bin/mail root root 0755

See Also

http://www.debian.org/security/2001/dsa-044

Plugin Details

Severity: High

ID: 14881

File Name: debian_DSA-044.nasl

Version: 1.23

Type: local

Agent: unix

Published: 9/29/2004

Updated: 1/4/2021

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

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:mailx, cpe:/o:debian:debian_linux:2.2

Required KB Items: Host/local_checks_enabled, Host/Debian/release, Host/Debian/dpkg-l

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 3/13/2001

Reference Information

BID: 2457

DSA: 044