__________________________________________________________ The U.S. Department of Energy Computer Incident Advisory Capability ___ __ __ _ ___ / | /_\ / \___ __|__ / \ \___ __________________________________________________________ INFORMATION BULLETIN Red Hat Updated Tcpdump Packages [Red Hat Security Advisory RHSA-2003:174-04] May 15, 2003 17:00 GMT Number N-097 ______________________________________________________________________________ PROBLEM: Tcpdump is a command-line tool for monitoring network traffic. A compilation error caused tcpdump to run as root rather than dropping to permissions of user 'pcap' as Red Hat previously advertised. PLATFORM: Red Hat Linux 7.1 Red Hat Linux 7.2 Red Hat Linux 7.3 Red Hat Linux 8.0 Red Hat Linux 9 DAMAGE: Unnecessarily running programs as root can leave systems vulnerable to unwanted activities. SOLUTION: Apply updated packages as stated in Red Hat's bulletin. ______________________________________________________________________________ VULNERABILITY The risk is MEDIUM. Without updating to these new packages, ASSESSMENT: tcpdump would run as root unless the '-U' flag was specified. ______________________________________________________________________________ LINKS: CIAC BULLETIN: http://www.ciac.org/ciac/bulletins/n-097.shtml ORIGINAL BULLETIN: https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2003-174.html ______________________________________________________________________________ [***** Start Red Hat Security Advisory RHSA-2003:174-04 *****] Updated tcpdump packages fix privilege dropping error Advisory: RHSA-2003:174-04 Last updated on: 2003-05-15 Affected Products: Red Hat Linux 7.1 Red Hat Linux 7.2 Red Hat Linux 7.3 Red Hat Linux 8.0 Red Hat Linux 9 CVEs (cve.mitre.org): CAN-2003-0194 Security Advisory Details: Updated tcpdump packages that correctly drop privileges on startup are now available. Tcpdump is a command-line tool for monitoring network traffic. The Red Hat tcpdump packages advertise that by default tcpdump will drop permissions to user 'pcap'. Due to a compilation error this did not happen, and tcpdump would run as root unless the '-U' flag was specified. Users of tcpdump are advised to upgrade to these errata packages, which contain are compiled so that by default tcpdump will drop privileges to the 'pcap' user. Updated packages: Red Hat Linux 7.1 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SRPMS: tcpdump-3.6.3-17.7.1.3.src.rpm [ via FTP ] [ via HTTP ] fac820eb58d79fc58d30bff1fd11f33d i386: tcpdump-3.6.3-17.7.1.3.i386.rpm [ via FTP ] [ via HTTP ] 3eadddac8cdf6ae0b14e8016f651e1f0 Red Hat Linux 7.2 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SRPMS: tcpdump-3.6.3-17.7.2.3.src.rpm [ via FTP ] [ via HTTP ] 5f5c14bd0dfdaa5b0d5dbc0fb70da395 i386: tcpdump-3.6.3-17.7.2.3.i386.rpm [ via FTP ] [ via HTTP ] c48e86db37c7f767ec8931ebb54fc0ae ia64: tcpdump-3.6.3-17.7.2.3.ia64.rpm [ via FTP ] [ via HTTP ] 39da71bfef8520c979db8cf21c4f6781 Red Hat Linux 7.3 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SRPMS: tcpdump-3.6.3-17.7.3.3.src.rpm [ via FTP ] [ via HTTP ] f9de6824ac351207bd105978eefed89d i386: tcpdump-3.6.3-17.7.3.3.i386.rpm [ via FTP ] [ via HTTP ] 8d54631bf99d61090f0752f29ef51f8f Red Hat Linux 8.0 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SRPMS: tcpdump-3.6.3-17.8.0.3.src.rpm [ via FTP ] [ via HTTP ] 67a36a50ec50a8aa2d32b2462fae653d i386: tcpdump-3.6.3-17.8.0.3.i386.rpm [ via FTP ] [ via HTTP ] afba9bea894090b9c179979403347629 Red Hat Linux 9 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SRPMS: tcpdump-3.7.2-1.9.1.src.rpm [ via FTP ] [ via HTTP ] 1b1b577c9ebfe84f735a6498140e1e7f i386: tcpdump-3.7.2-1.9.1.i386.rpm [ via FTP ] [ via HTTP ] 6cff8bf6b2425c361eec70ba3017d82b Solution Before applying this update, make sure all previously released errata relevant to your system have been applied. Please note that this update is available via Red Hat Network. To use Red Hat Network, launch the Red Hat Update Agent with the following command: up2date This will start an interactive process that will result in the appropriate RPMs being upgraded on your system. Bugs fixed: (see bugzilla for more information) 88881 - CAN-2003-0145 RADUIS tcpdump vulnerability 90208 - CAN-2003-0194 tcpdump didn't drop root to pcap user like promised References: http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CAN-2003-0194 Keywords: tcpdump -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The listed packages are GPG signed by Red Hat, Inc. for security. Our key is available at: http://www.redhat.com/solutions/security/news/publickey/#key You can verify each package and see who signed it with the following command: rpm --checksig -v filename If you only wish to verify that each package has not been corrupted or tampered with, examine only the md5sum with the following command: md5sum filename The Red Hat security contact is security@redhat.com. More contact details at http://www.redhat.com/solutions/security/news/contact.html [***** End Red Hat Security Advisory RHSA-2003:174-04 *****] _______________________________________________________________________________ CIAC wishes to acknowledge the contributions of Red Hat for the information contained in this bulletin. _______________________________________________________________________________ CIAC, the Computer Incident Advisory Capability, is the computer security incident response team for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the emergency backup response team for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). CIAC is located at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California. CIAC is also a founding member of FIRST, the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams, a global organization established to foster cooperation and coordination among computer security teams worldwide. CIAC services are available to DOE, DOE contractors, and the NIH. CIAC can be contacted at: Voice: +1 925-422-8193 (7x24) FAX: +1 925-423-8002 STU-III: +1 925-423-2604 E-mail: ciac@ciac.org Previous CIAC notices, anti-virus software, and other information are available from the CIAC Computer Security Archive. World Wide Web: http://www.ciac.org/ Anonymous FTP: ftp.ciac.org PLEASE NOTE: Many users outside of the DOE, ESnet, and NIH computing communities receive CIAC bulletins. If you are not part of these communities, please contact your agency's response team to report incidents. Your agency's team will coordinate with CIAC. The Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) is a world-wide organization. A list of FIRST member organizations and their constituencies can be obtained via WWW at http://www.first.org/. This document was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor the University of California nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial products, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation or favoring by the United States Government or the University of California. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or the University of California, and shall not be used for advertising or product endorsement purposes. 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