5 - RHSA-2011:1820

Problem Description:

Updated pidgin packages that fix multiple security issues are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 and 5.

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.

2. Relevant releases/architectures:

RHEL Desktop Workstation (v. 5 client) - i386, x86_64 RHEL Optional Productivity Applications (v. 5 server) - i386, x86_64 Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS version 4 - i386, ia64, ppc, x86_64 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop (v. 5 client) - i386, x86_64 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop version 4 - i386, x86_64 Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES version 4 - i386, ia64, x86_64 Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS version 4 - i386, ia64, x86_64

3. Description:

Pidgin is an instant messaging program which can log in to multiple accounts on multiple instant messaging networks simultaneously.

An input sanitization flaw was found in the way the AOL Open System for Communication in Realtime (OSCAR) protocol plug-in in Pidgin, used by the AOL ICQ and AIM instant messaging systems, escaped certain UTF-8 characters. A remote attacker could use this flaw to crash Pidgin via a specially-crafted OSCAR message. (CVE-2011-4601)

An input sanitization flaw was found in the way the Pidgin SILC (Secure Internet Live Conferencing) protocol plug-in escaped certain UTF-8 characters in channel messages. A remote attacker could use this flaw to crash Pidgin via a specially-crafted SILC message. (CVE-2011-4603)

Multiple NULL pointer dereference flaws were found in the Jingle extension of the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) protocol plug-in in Pidgin. A remote attacker could use these flaws to crash Pidgin via a specially-crafted Jingle multimedia message. (CVE-2011-4602)

Red Hat would like to thank the Pidgin project for reporting these issues. Upstream acknowledges Evgeny Boger as the original reporter of CVE-2011-4601; Diego Bauche Madero from IOActive as the original reporter of CVE-2011-4603; and Thijs Alkemade as the original reporter of CVE-2011-4602.

All Pidgin users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches to resolve these issues. Pidgin must be restarted for this update to take effect.

4. 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/kb/docs/DOC-11259

5. Bugs fixed (http://bugzilla.redhat.com/):

761510 - CVE-2011-4602 pidgin: Multiple NULL pointer deference flaws by processing certain Jingle stanzas in the XMPP protocol plug-in 761517 - CVE-2011-4601 pidgin (libpurple): Invalid UTF-8 string handling in OSCAR messages 766446 - CVE-2011-4603 pidgin: SILC remote crash on channel messages