This update incorporates the upstream patches to fix an attempt to free an invalid pointer in kadmind (MITKRB5-SA-2011-004).

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.

Felipe Ortega discovered that kadmind did not correctly handle password changing error conditions. An unauthenticated remote attacker could exploit this to crash kadmind, leading to a denial of service.

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.

The remote NewStart CGSL host, running version MAIN 6.06, has krb5 packages installed that are affected by multiple vulnerabilities:

  - plugins/preauth/pkinit/pkinit_crypto_openssl.c in MIT Kerberos 5 (aka krb5) through 1.15.2 mishandles     Distinguished Name (DN) fields, which allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial     of service (buffer overflow and application crash) in situations involving untrusted X.509 data, related     to the get_matching_data and X509_NAME_oneline_ex functions. NOTE: this has security relevance only in use     cases outside of the MIT Kerberos distribution, e.g., the use of get_matching_data in KDC certauth plugin     code that is specific to Red Hat. (CVE-2017-15088)

  - The process_chpw_request function in schpw.c in the password-changing functionality in kadmind in MIT     Kerberos 5 (aka krb5) 1.7 through 1.9 frees an invalid pointer, which allows remote attackers to execute     arbitrary code or cause a denial of service (daemon crash) via a crafted request that triggers an error     condition. (CVE-2011-0285)

  - schpw.c in the kpasswd service in kadmind in MIT Kerberos 5 (aka krb5) before 1.11.3 does not properly     validate UDP packets before sending responses, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service     (CPU and bandwidth consumption) via a forged packet that triggers a communication loop, as demonstrated by     krb_pingpong.nasl, a related issue to CVE-1999-0103. (CVE-2002-2443)

  - The (1) ftpd and (2) ksu programs in (a) MIT Kerberos 5 (krb5) up to 1.5, and 1.4.x before 1.4.4, and (b)     Heimdal 0.7.2 and earlier, do not check return codes for setuid calls, which might allow local users to     gain privileges by causing setuid to fail to drop privileges. NOTE: as of 20060808, it is not known     whether an exploitable attack scenario exists for these issues. (CVE-2006-3084)

  - The RPC library in Kerberos 5 1.4 through 1.4.4, and 1.5 through 1.5.1, as used in Kerberos administration     daemon (kadmind) and other products that use this library, calls an uninitialized function pointer in     freed memory, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) and possibly execute     arbitrary code via unspecified vectors. (CVE-2006-6143)

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

An advisory published by the MIT Kerberos team says :

The password-changing capability of the MIT krb5 administration daemon (kadmind) has a bug that can cause it to attempt to free() an invalid pointer under certain error conditions. This can cause the daemon to crash or induce the execution of arbitrary code (which is believed to be difficult). No exploit that executes arbitrary code is known to exist, but it is easy to trigger a denial of service manually.

Some platforms detect attempted freeing of invalid pointers and protectively terminate the process, preventing arbitrary code execution on those platforms.

The remote MiracleLinux 4 host has packages installed that are affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the AXSA:2011-157:03 advisory.

    Kerberos V5 is a trusted-third-party network authentication system, which can improve your network's     security by eliminating the insecure practice of cleartext passwords.
    Security issues fixed with this release:
    CVE-2011-0285     The process_chpw_request function in schpw.c in the password-changing functionality in kadmind in MIT     Kerberos 5 (aka krb5) 1.7 through 1.9 frees an invalid pointer, which allows remote attackers to execute     arbitrary code or cause a denial of service (daemon crash) via a crafted request that triggers an error     condition.

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the MiracleLinux security advisory.

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

A vulnerability has been found and corrected in krb5 :

The process_chpw_request function in schpw.c in the password-changing functionality in kadmind in MIT Kerberos 5 (aka krb5) 1.7 through 1.9 frees an invalid pointer, which allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service (daemon crash) via a crafted request that triggers an error condition (CVE-2011-0285).

The updated packages have been patched to correct this issue.

The remote Oracle Linux 6 host has packages installed that are affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the ELSA-2011-0447 advisory.

    [1.8.2-3.7]
    - kadmind: add upstream patch to fix free() on an invalid pointer (#696341,       MITKRB5-SA-2011-004, CVE-2011-0285)

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Oracle 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.

ID	Name	Product	Family	Published	Updated	Severity
53554	Fedora 13 : krb5-1.7.1-19.fc13 (2011-5343)	Nessus	Fedora Local Security Checks	4/26/2011	1/11/2021	critical
55074	Ubuntu 9.10 / 10.04 LTS / 10.10 : krb5 vulnerability (USN-1116-1)	Nessus	Ubuntu Local Security Checks	6/13/2011	9/19/2019	critical
266225	NewStart CGSL MAIN 6.06 : krb5 Multiple Vulnerabilities (NS-SA-2025-0215)	Nessus	NewStart CGSL Local Security Checks	9/30/2025	10/1/2025	critical
53442	FreeBSD : krb5 -- MITKRB5-SA-2011-004, kadmind invalid pointer free() [CVE-2011-0285] (6a3c3e5c-66cb-11e0-a116-c535f3aa24f0)	Nessus	FreeBSD Local Security Checks	4/15/2011	1/6/2021	critical
284098	MiracleLinux 4 : krb5-1.8.2-3.AXS4.7 (AXSA:2011-157:03)	Nessus	Miracle Linux Local Security Checks	1/14/2026	1/14/2026	critical
53555	Fedora 14 : krb5-1.8.2-10.fc14 (2011-5345)	Nessus	Fedora Local Security Checks	4/26/2011	1/11/2021	critical
53538	Mandriva Linux Security Advisory : krb5 (MDVSA-2011:077)	Nessus	Mandriva Local Security Checks	4/23/2011	1/6/2021	critical
68256	Oracle Linux 6 : krb5 (ELSA-2011-0447)	Nessus	Oracle Linux Local Security Checks	7/12/2013	10/23/2024	critical

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