RHEL 6 : gdb (RHSA-2013:0522)

medium Nessus Plugin ID 64769

Synopsis

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

Description

Updated gdb packages that fix one security issue and three bugs are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having moderate security impact. A Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base score, which gives a detailed severity rating, is available from the CVE link in the References section.

The GNU Debugger (GDB) allows debugging of programs written in C, C++, Java, and other languages by executing them in a controlled fashion and then printing out their data.

GDB tried to auto-load certain files (such as GDB scripts, Python scripts, and a thread debugging library) from the current working directory when debugging programs. This could result in the execution of arbitrary code with the user's privileges when GDB was run in a directory that has untrusted content. (CVE-2011-4355)

With this update, GDB no longer auto-loads files from the current directory and only trusts certain system directories by default. The list of trusted directories can be viewed and modified using the 'show auto-load safe-path' and 'set auto-load safe-path' GDB commands. Refer to the GDB manual, linked to in the References, for further information.

This update also fixes the following bugs :

* When a struct member was at an offset greater than 256 MB, the resulting bit position within the struct overflowed and caused an invalid memory access by GDB. With this update, the code has been modified to ensure that GDB can access such positions. (BZ#795424)

* When a thread list of the core file became corrupted, GDB did not print this list but displayed the 'Cannot find new threads: generic error' error message instead. With this update, GDB has been modified and it now prints the thread list of the core file as expected.
(BZ#811648)

* GDB did not properly handle debugging of multiple binaries with the same build ID. This update modifies GDB to use symbolic links created for particular binaries so that debugging of binaries that share a build ID now proceeds as expected. Debugging of live programs and core files is now more user-friendly. (BZ#836966)

All users of gdb are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches to correct these issues.

Solution

Update the affected gdb, gdb-debuginfo and / or gdb-gdbserver packages.

See Also

http://sourceware.org/gdb/current/onlinedocs/gdb/

http://www.nessus.org/u?b6a7f3c1

https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2013:0522

https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/cve-2011-4355

Plugin Details

Severity: Medium

ID: 64769

File Name: redhat-RHSA-2013-0522.nasl

Version: 1.14

Type: local

Agent: unix

Published: 2/21/2013

Updated: 1/14/2021

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

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 5.9

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 6.9

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

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:gdb, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:gdb-debuginfo, p-cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:gdb-gdbserver, cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:6

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

Patch Publication Date: 2/21/2013

Vulnerability Publication Date: 3/5/2013

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2011-4355

RHSA: 2013:0522