[R5] Nessus 6.8 Fixes Multiple Vulnerabilities

Related Vulnerabilities: CVE-2016-0718   CVE-2016-1000028   CVE-2016-1000029  

Nessus has been found to contain four vulnerabilities. The first is in the third-party library, libexpat, and the other three are native to Nessus: CVE-2016-0718 - The Expat XML Parser (expat/libexpat) contains an overflow condition that is triggered as user-supplied input is not properly validated when handling malformed input documents. This may allow a remote attacker to cause a buffer overflow, resulting in a denial of service or potentially allowing the execution of arbitrary code. (9.0 / 6.7 (AV:N/AC:L/Au:S/C:C/I:C/A:C/E:U/RL:OF/RC:C)) CVE-2016-1000028 / Tenable ID 5198 - A stored cross-site scripting (XSS) issue that requires user-level authentication to the Nessus UI. [4.0 / 3.1 (AV:N/AC:L/Au:S/C:N/I:P/A:N/E:POC/RL:OF/RC:C)] CVE-2016-1000029 / Tenable ID 5218 - A stored cross-site scripting (XSS) issue that requires admin-level authentication to the Nessus UI, and would only potentially impact other admins. [2.1 / 1.6 (AV:N/AC:H/Au:S/C:N/I:P/A:N/E:POC/RL:OF/RC:C)] CVE-2016-1000029 / Tenable ID 5269 - A stored cross-site scripting (XSS) issue that requires admin-level authentication to the Nessus UI, and would only potentially impact other admins. [2.1 / 1.6 (AV:N/AC:H/Au:S/C:N/I:P/A:N/E:POC/RL:OF/RC:C)] NO-CVE-YET / Tenable ID 5268 - A stored cross-site scripting (XSS) issue that requires admin-level authentication to the Nessus UI, and would only potentially impact other admins. [2.1 / 1.6 (AV:N/AC:H/Au:S/C:N/I:P/A:N/E:POC/RL:OF/RC:C)] Note that the overall CVSSv2 score assigned to this advisory represents the libexpat issue. The XSS issues have individual scores for customers to better understand the risks. Nessus plugin nessus_tns_2016_11.nasl (92465) has been released to detect these issues. Please note that Tenable strongly recommends that Nessus be installed on a subnet that is not Internet addressable.

Synopsis

Nessus has been found to contain four vulnerabilities. The first is in the third-party library, libexpat, and the other three are native to Nessus:

  • CVE-2016-0718 - The Expat XML Parser (expat/libexpat) contains an overflow condition that is triggered as user-supplied input is not properly validated when handling malformed input documents. This may allow a remote attacker to cause a buffer overflow, resulting in a denial of service or potentially allowing the execution of arbitrary code. (9.0 / 6.7 (AV:N/AC:L/Au:S/C:C/I:C/A:C/E:U/RL:OF/RC:C))
  • CVE-2016-1000028 / Tenable ID 5198 - A stored cross-site scripting (XSS) issue that requires user-level authentication to the Nessus UI. [4.0 / 3.1 (AV:N/AC:L/Au:S/C:N/I:P/A:N/E:POC/RL:OF/RC:C)]
  • CVE-2016-1000029 / Tenable ID 5218 - A stored cross-site scripting (XSS) issue that requires admin-level authentication to the Nessus UI, and would only potentially impact other admins. [2.1 / 1.6 (AV:N/AC:H/Au:S/C:N/I:P/A:N/E:POC/RL:OF/RC:C)]
  • CVE-2016-1000029 / Tenable ID 5269 - A stored cross-site scripting (XSS) issue that requires admin-level authentication to the Nessus UI, and would only potentially impact other admins. [2.1 / 1.6 (AV:N/AC:H/Au:S/C:N/I:P/A:N/E:POC/RL:OF/RC:C)]
  • NO-CVE-YET / Tenable ID 5268 - A stored cross-site scripting (XSS) issue that requires admin-level authentication to the Nessus UI, and would only potentially impact other admins. [2.1 / 1.6 (AV:N/AC:H/Au:S/C:N/I:P/A:N/E:POC/RL:OF/RC:C)]

Note that the overall CVSSv2 score assigned to this advisory represents the libexpat issue. The XSS issues have individual scores for customers to better understand the risks. Nessus plugin nessus_tns_2016_11.nasl (92465) has been released to detect these issues.

Please note that Tenable strongly recommends that Nessus be installed on a subnet that is not Internet addressable.

Solution

Tenable has released Nessus version 6.8 that corresponds to the supported operating systems and architectures. This version bundles the updated libexpat library (2.1.1), and resolves the cross-site scripting issues.

To update your Nessus installation, follow these steps: