RHEL 2.1 : gdm (RHSA-2003:259)

medium Nessus Plugin ID 12416

Synopsis

The remote Red Hat host is missing a security update.

Description

Updated GDM packages are available which correct a local crash if XDMCP is enabled.

GDM is the GNOME Display Manager for X.

Two bugs have been found in the X Display Manager Control Protocol (XDMCP) which could allow a denial of service attack (DoS) by crashing the gdm daemon. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the names CVE-2003-0548 and CVE-2003-0549 to these issues.

This attack is only possible if XDMCP is enabled. XDMCP is not enabled by default in Red Hat Enterprise Linux distributions. In addition is documented best practise that XDMCP should only ever be run on trusted networks.

Users of XDMCP in GDM should upgrade to these erratum packages which contain backported security fixes are are not vulnerable to these issues.

Note that Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1 is not vulnerable to CVE-2003-0547, a vulnerability that allows a local user to read any text file, as it did not have the 'examine session errors' feature.

Solution

Update the affected gdm package.

See Also

https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/cve-2003-0549

https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/cve-2003-0548

https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2003:259

Plugin Details

Severity: Medium

ID: 12416

File Name: redhat-RHSA-2003-259.nasl

Version: 1.27

Type: local

Agent: unix

Published: 7/6/2004

Updated: 1/14/2021

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

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Low

Score: 3.6

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 5

Temporal Score: 3.7

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

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:gdm, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:2.1

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

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 8/21/2003

Vulnerability Publication Date: 8/27/2003

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2003-0548, CVE-2003-0549

BID: 8470

RHSA: 2003:259