Moderate: postgresql and postgresql84 security update
Security Advisory: Moderate
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.
Before applying this update, make sure all previously-released errata
relevant to your system have been applied.
This update is available via the Red Hat Network. Details on how to
use the Red Hat Network to apply this update are available at
https://access.redhat.com/knowledge/articles/11258
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