RHEL 5 / 6 : postgresql and postgresql84 (RHSA-2012:1037)

medium Nessus Plugin ID 59712

Synopsis

The remote Red Hat host is missing one or more security updates.

Description

Updated postgresql84 and postgresql packages that fix two security issues are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6 respectively.

The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having moderate security impact. Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base scores, which give detailed severity ratings, are available for each vulnerability from the CVE links in the References section.

PostgreSQL is an advanced object-relational database management system (DBMS).

A flaw was found in the way the crypt() password hashing function from the optional PostgreSQL pgcrypto contrib module performed password transformation when used with the DES algorithm. If the password string to be hashed contained the 0x80 byte value, the remainder of the string was ignored when calculating the hash, significantly reducing the password strength. This made brute-force guessing more efficient as the whole password was not required to gain access to protected resources. (CVE-2012-2143)

Note: With this update, the rest of the string is properly included in the DES hash; therefore, any previously stored password values that are affected by this issue will no longer match. In such cases, it will be necessary for those stored password hashes to be updated.

A denial of service flaw was found in the way the PostgreSQL server performed a user privileges check when applying SECURITY DEFINER or SET attributes to a procedural language's (such as PL/Perl or PL/Python) call handler function. A non-superuser database owner could use this flaw to cause the PostgreSQL server to crash due to infinite recursion. (CVE-2012-2655)

Upstream acknowledges Rubin Xu and Joseph Bonneau as the original reporters of the CVE-2012-2143 issue.

These updated packages upgrade PostgreSQL to version 8.4.12, which fixes these issues as well as several non-security issues. Refer to the PostgreSQL Release Notes for a full list of changes :

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.4/static/release.html

All PostgreSQL users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which correct these issues. If the postgresql service is running, it will be automatically restarted after installing this update.

Solution

Update the affected packages.

See Also

https://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.4/release.html

https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2012:1037

https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/cve-2012-2143

https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/cve-2012-2655

Plugin Details

Severity: Medium

ID: 59712

File Name: redhat-RHSA-2012-1037.nasl

Version: 1.23

Type: local

Agent: unix

Published: 6/26/2012

Updated: 1/14/2021

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

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 4.8

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 4.3

Temporal Score: 3.2

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

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:postgresql, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:postgresql-contrib, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:postgresql-debuginfo, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:postgresql-devel, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:postgresql-docs, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:postgresql-libs, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:postgresql-plperl, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:postgresql-plpython, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:postgresql-pltcl, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:postgresql-server, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:postgresql-test, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:postgresql84, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:postgresql84-contrib, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:postgresql84-debuginfo, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:postgresql84-devel, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:postgresql84-docs, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:postgresql84-libs, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:postgresql84-plperl, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:postgresql84-plpython, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:postgresql84-pltcl, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:postgresql84-python, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:postgresql84-server, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:postgresql84-tcl, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:postgresql84-test, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:5, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:6, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:6.3

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

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 6/25/2012

Vulnerability Publication Date: 7/5/2012

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2012-2143, CVE-2012-2655

BID: 53729, 53812

RHSA: 2012:1037