RHSA-2007-0555: pam

NASLDB: RHSA-2007-0555: pam

General

ID: 27831
Name: RHSA-2007-0555: pam

Summary: Check for the version of the pam packages

Credits: Tenable Network Security, Inc.

Classification

Risk: –

CVSS: CVSS2#AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:N
CVSS Base Vector: –
CVSS Temporal Vector: –

Port: 0
Family: Red Hat Local Security Checks
Type: Local

Description

Updated pam packages that fix two security flaws, resolve several bugs, and
add enhancements are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

This update has been rated as having moderate security impact by the Red
Hat Security Response Team.

Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) provide a system whereby
administrators can set up authentication policies without having to
recompile programs that handle authentication.

A flaw was found in the way pam_console set console device permissions. It
was possible for various console devices to retain ownership of the console
user after logging out, possibly leaking information to another local user.
(CVE-2007-1716)

A flaw was found in the way the PAM library wrote account names to the
audit subsystem. An attacker could inject strings containing parts of audit
messages which could possibly mislead or confuse audit log parsing tools.
(CVE-2007-3102)

As well, these updated packages fix the following bugs:

* truncated MD5-hashed passwords in "/etc/shadow" were treated as valid,
resulting in insecure and invalid passwords.

* the pam_namespace module did not convert context names to raw format and
did not unmount polyinstantiated directories in some cases. It also crashed
when an unknown user name was used in "/etc/security/namespace.conf", the
pam_namespace configuration file.

* the pam_selinux module was not relabeling the controlling tty correctly,
and in some cases it did not send complete information about user role and
level change to the audit subsystem.

These updated packages add the following enhancements:

* pam_limits module now supports parsing additional config files placed
into the /etc/security/limits.d/ directory. These files are read after the
main configuration file.

* the modules pam_limits, pam_access, and pam_time now send a message to
the audit subsystem when a user is denied access based on the number of
login sessions, origin of user, and time of login.

* pam_unix module security properties were improved. Functionality in the
setuid helper binary, unix_chkpwd, which was not required for user
authentication, was moved to a new non-setuid helper binary, unix_update.

All users of PAM should upgrade to these updated packages, which resolve
these issues and add these enhancements.