Red Hat alert: new modutils release addresses more local root compromise possibilities

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                   Red Hat, Inc. Security Advisory

Synopsis:          new modutils release addresses more local root compromise possibilities
Advisory ID:       RHSA-2000:108-04
Issue date:        2000-11-16
Updated on:        2000-11-22
Product:           Red Hat Linux
Keywords:          modutils root exploit security
Cross references:  N/A
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1. Topic:

A new modutils-2.3.21 package has been released to correctly enable safe
guard measures introduced in modutils-2.3.20.

2. Relevant releases/architectures:

Red Hat Linux 6.2 - i386, alpha, sparc
Red Hat Linux 7.0 - i386
Red Hat Linux 7.0J - i386

3. Problem description:

The previous packages of modutils released to address a local root 
compromise contained an error in new safe guards that caused them to
not properly be enabled when run as root from the kmod process.  These
new safe guards check the arguments passed to modules.  The new 2.3.21
modutils package fixes this error and correctly checks the arguments
when running from kmod, limiting kernel module arguments to those
specified in /etc/conf.modules (on Red Hat Linux 6.2) or /etc/modules.conf
(on Red Hat Linux 7).  This release supersedes the previous modutils errata
packages.

4. Solution:

For each RPM for your particular architecture, run:

rpm -Fvh [filename]

where filename is the name of the RPM.

2000-11-17: For Red Hat Linux 6.2, if you installed the previous
modutils-2.3.20-0.6.2 packages, you will need to run:

      mv /etc/modules.conf /etc/conf.modules

5. Bug IDs fixed (http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla for more info):

20749 - local root exploit via modutils


6. RPMs required:

Red Hat Linux 6.2:

alpha:
ftp://updates.redhat.com/6.2/alpha/modutils-2.3.21-0.6.2.alpha.rpm

sparc:
ftp://updates.redhat.com/6.2/sparc/modutils-2.3.21-0.6.2.sparc.rpm

i386:
ftp://updates.redhat.com/6.2/i386/modutils-2.3.21-0.6.2.i386.rpm

sources:
ftp://updates.redhat.com/6.2/SRPMS/modutils-2.3.21-0.6.2.src.rpm

Red Hat Linux 7.0:

i386:
ftp://updates.redhat.com/7.0/i386/modutils-2.3.21-1.i386.rpm

sources:
ftp://updates.redhat.com/7.0/SRPMS/modutils-2.3.21-1.src.rpm

7. Verification:

MD5 sum                           Package Name
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
b21fb3e4bdef79b28c3cfbd679fa9543  6.2/SRPMS/modutils-2.3.21-0.6.2.src.rpm
73953a51d51d173b8acbf93ef387fd81  6.2/alpha/modutils-2.3.21-0.6.2.alpha.rpm
4439637a314f3bb60970795d614022b1  6.2/i386/modutils-2.3.21-0.6.2.i386.rpm
c063d22e0aeeaa762e5bd9903af42cc3  6.2/sparc/modutils-2.3.21-0.6.2.sparc.rpm
3ae5ad039cb895f0599d4d52ccf61275  7.0/SRPMS/modutils-2.3.21-1.src.rpm
46b7f3331bccd927d9d7fefbec74f721  7.0/i386/modutils-2.3.21-1.i386.rpm

These packages are GPG signed by Red Hat, Inc. for security.  Our key
is available at:
    http://www.redhat.com/corp/contact.html

You can verify each package with the following command:
    rpm --checksig  

If you only wish to verify that each package has not been corrupted or
tampered with, examine only the md5sum with the following command:
    rpm --checksig --nogpg 

8. References:

N/A


Copyright(c) 2000 Red Hat, Inc.