Debian DSA-297-1 : snort - integer overflow, buffer overflow

critical Nessus Plugin ID 15134

Synopsis

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

Description

Two vulnerabilities have been discovered in Snort, a popular network intrusion detection system. Snort comes with modules and plugins that perform a variety of functions such as protocol analysis. The following issues have been identified :

Heap overflow in Snort 'stream4' preprocessor (VU#139129, CAN-2003-0209, Bugtraq Id 7178)Researchers at CORE Security Technologies have discovered a remotely exploitable integer overflow that results in overwriting the heap in the 'stream4' preprocessor module. This module allows Snort to reassemble TCP packet fragments for further analysis. An attacker could insert arbitrary code that would be executed as the user running Snort, probably root.Buffer overflow in Snort RPC preprocessor (VU#916785, CAN-2003-0033, Bugtraq Id 6963)Researchers at Internet Security Systems X-Force have discovered a remotely exploitable buffer overflow in the Snort RPC preprocessor module. Snort incorrectly checks the lengths of what is being normalized against the current packet size. An attacker could exploit this to execute arbitrary code under the privileges of the Snort process, probably root.

Solution

Upgrade the snort package immediately.

For the stable distribution (woody) these problems have been fixed in version 1.8.4beta1-3.1.

The old stable distribution (potato) is not affected by these problems since it doesn't contain the problematic code.

You are also advised to upgrade to the most recent version of Snort, since Snort, as any intrusion detection system, is rather useless if it is based on old and out-dated data and not kept up to date. Such installations would be unable to detect intrusions using modern methods. The current version of Snort is 2.0.0, while the version in the stable distribution (1.8) is quite old and the one in the old stable distribution is beyond hope.

Since Debian does not update arbitrary packages in stable releases, even Snort is not going to see updates other than to fix security problems, you are advised to upgrade to the most recent version from third-party sources.

See Also

http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-297

Plugin Details

Severity: Critical

ID: 15134

File Name: debian_DSA-297.nasl

Version: 1.33

Type: local

Agent: unix

Published: 9/29/2004

Updated: 1/4/2021

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

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 6.7

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Critical

Base Score: 10

Temporal Score: 7.8

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

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:snort, cpe:/o:debian:debian_linux:3.0

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

Exploit Available: true

Exploit Ease: Exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 5/1/2003

Vulnerability Publication Date: 4/15/2003

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2003-0033, CVE-2003-0209

BID: 6963, 7178

CERT: 139129, 916785

DSA: 297