RHEL 4 : vsftpd (RHSA-2008:0680)

high Nessus Plugin ID 33582

Synopsis

The remote Red Hat host is missing a security update for vsftpd.

Description

The remote Redhat Enterprise Linux 4 host has a package installed that is affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the RHSA-2008:0680 advisory.

vsftpd (Very Secure File Transfer Protocol (FTP) daemon) is a secure FTP server for Linux and Unix-like systems.

The version of vsftpd as shipped in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 when used in combination with Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) had a memory leak on an invalid authentication attempt. Since vsftpd prior to version 2.0.5 allows any number of invalid attempts on the same connection this memory leak could lead to an eventual DoS. (CVE-2008-2375)

This update mitigates this security issue by including a backported patch which terminates a session after a given number of failed log in attempts.
The default number of attempts is 3 and this can be configured using the max_login_fails directive.

This package also addresses the following bugs:

* when uploading unique files, a bug in vsftpd caused the file to be saved with a suffix '.1' even when no previous file with that name existed. This issues is resolved in this package.

* when vsftpd was run through the init script, it was possible for the init script to print an 'OK' message, even though the vsftpd may not have started. The init script no longer produces a false verification with this update.

* vsftpd only supported usernames with a maximum length of 32 characters.
The updated package now supports usernames up to 128 characters long.

* a system flaw meant vsftpd output could become dependent on the timing or sequence of other events, even when the lock_upload_files option was set.
If a file, filename.ext, was being uploaded and a second transfer of the file, filename.ext, was started before the first transfer was finished, the resultant uploaded file was a corrupt concatenation of the latter upload and the tail of the earlier upload. With this updated package, vsftpd allows the earlier upload to complete before overwriting with the latter upload, fixing the issue.

* the 'lock_upload_files' option was not documented in the manual page. A new manual page describing this option is included in this package.

* vsftpd did not support usernames that started with an underscore or a period character. These special characters are now allowed at the beginning of a username.

* when storing a unique file, vsftpd could cause an error for some clients.
This is rectified in this package.

* vsftpd init script was found to not be Linux Standards Base compliant.
This update corrects their exit codes to conform to the standard.

All vsftpd users are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which resolves these issues.

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Red Hat Enterprise Linux security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

Solution

Update the RHEL vsftpd package based on the guidance in RHSA-2008:0680.

Plugin Details

Severity: High

ID: 33582

File Name: redhat-RHSA-2008-0680.nasl

Version: 1.24

Type: local

Agent: unix

Family: Red Hat Local Security Checks

Published: 7/25/2008

Updated: 3/24/2025

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

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 4.4

Vendor

Vendor Severity: Moderate

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 7.1

Temporal Score: 5.6

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

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2008-2375

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 7.5

Temporal Score: 6.7

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:P/RL:O/RC:C

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:vsftpd, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:4

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

Patch Publication Date: 7/24/2008

Vulnerability Publication Date: 7/8/2008

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2008-2375

CWE: 401

RHSA: 2008:0680

Detections

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