Moderate: mailx security update

Related Vulnerabilities: CVE-2004-2771   CVE-2014-7844   CVE-2004-2771   CVE-2014-7844  

Synopsis

Moderate: mailx security update

Type/Severity

Security Advisory: Moderate

Topic

Updated mailx packages that fix two security issues are now available for
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 and 7.

Red Hat Product Security 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.

Description

The mailx packages contain a mail user agent that is used to manage mail
using scripts.

A flaw was found in the way mailx handled the parsing of email addresses.
A syntactically valid email address could allow a local attacker to cause
mailx to execute arbitrary shell commands through shell meta-characters and
the direct command execution functionality. (CVE-2004-2771, CVE-2014-7844)

Note: Applications using mailx to send email to addresses obtained from
untrusted sources will still remain vulnerable to other attacks if they
accept email addresses which start with "-" (so that they can be confused
with mailx options). To counteract this issue, this update also introduces
the "--" option, which will treat the remaining command line arguments as
email addresses.

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

Solution

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/articles/11258

Affected Products

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 7 x86_64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 6 x86_64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 6 i386
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Update Support 7.6 x86_64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Update Support 7.5 x86_64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Update Support 7.4 x86_64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Update Support 7.3 x86_64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Update Support 6.6 x86_64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Update Support 6.6 i386
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - AUS 7.4 x86_64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - AUS 7.3 x86_64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - AUS 6.6 x86_64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 7 x86_64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 6 x86_64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 6 i386
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 7 x86_64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 6 x86_64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 6 i386
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 7 s390x
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 6 s390x
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems - Extended Update Support 7.6 s390x
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems - Extended Update Support 7.5 s390x
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems - Extended Update Support 7.4 s390x
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems - Extended Update Support 7.3 s390x
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems - Extended Update Support 6.6 s390x
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 7 ppc64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 6 ppc64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 7.6 ppc64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 7.5 ppc64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 7.4 ppc64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 7.3 ppc64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian - Extended Update Support 6.6 ppc64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Scientific Computing 7 x86_64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Scientific Computing 6 x86_64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 7 x86_64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 6 x86_64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 6 i386
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Update Support from RHUI 6.6 x86_64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Update Support from RHUI 6.6 i386
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux EUS Compute Node 7.6 x86_64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux EUS Compute Node 7.5 x86_64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux EUS Compute Node 7.4 x86_64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux EUS Compute Node 7.3 x86_64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux EUS Compute Node 6.6 x86_64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - AUS 7.6 x86_64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - TUS 7.6 x86_64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - TUS 7.3 x86_64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - TUS 6.6 x86_64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Update Services for SAP Solutions 7.6 x86_64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Update Services for SAP Solutions 7.4 x86_64
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Update Services for SAP Solutions 7.3 x86_64

Fixes

  • BZ - 1162783 - CVE-2004-2771 CVE-2014-7844 mailx: command execution flaw

CVEs

References