10 - RHSA-2014:0139

Problem Description:

Updated pidgin packages that fix multiple security issues are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6.

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 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop (v. 5 client) - i386, x86_64 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop (v. 6) - i386, x86_64 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop Optional (v. 6) - i386, x86_64 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server Optional (v. 6) - i386, ppc64, x86_64 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation (v. 6) - i386, x86_64 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation Optional (v. 6) - i386, x86_64

3. Description:

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

A heap-based buffer overflow flaw was found in the way Pidgin processed certain HTTP responses. A malicious server could send a specially crafted HTTP response, causing Pidgin to crash or potentially execute arbitrary code with the permissions of the user running Pidgin. (CVE-2013-6485)

Multiple heap-based buffer overflow flaws were found in several protocol plug-ins in Pidgin (Gadu-Gadu, MXit, SIMPLE). A malicious server could send a specially crafted message, causing Pidgin to crash or potentially execute arbitrary code with the permissions of the user running Pidgin. (CVE-2013-6487, CVE-2013-6489, CVE-2013-6490)

Multiple denial of service flaws were found in several protocol plug-ins in Pidgin (Yahoo!, XMPP, MSN, stun, IRC). A remote attacker could use these flaws to crash Pidgin by sending a specially crafted message. (CVE-2012-6152, CVE-2013-6477, CVE-2013-6481, CVE-2013-6482, CVE-2013-6484, CVE-2014-0020)

It was found that the Pidgin XMPP protocol plug-in did not verify the origin of "iq" replies. A remote attacker could use this flaw to spoof an "iq" reply, which could lead to injection of fake data or cause Pidgin to crash via a NULL pointer dereference. (CVE-2013-6483)

A flaw was found in the way Pidgin parsed certain HTTP response headers. A remote attacker could use this flaw to crash Pidgin via a specially crafted HTTP response header. (CVE-2013-6479)

It was found that Pidgin crashed when a mouse pointer was hovered over a long URL. A remote attacker could use this flaw to crash Pidgin by sending a message containing a long URL string. (CVE-2013-6478)

Red Hat would like to thank the Pidgin project for reporting these issues. Upstream acknowledges Thijs Alkemade, Robert Vehse, Jaime Breva Ribes, Jacob Appelbaum of the Tor Project, Daniel Atallah, Fabian Yamaguchi and Christian Wressnegger of the University of Goettingen, Matt Jones of Volvent, and Yves Younan, Ryan Pentney, and Pawel Janic of Sourcefire VRT as the original reporters of these issues.

All pidgin users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches to correct 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/site/articles/11258

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

1056473 - CVE-2012-6152 pidgin: DoS when decoding non-UTF-8 strings in Yahoo protocol plugin 1056479 - CVE-2013-6477 pidgin: DoS when handling timestamps in the XMPP plugin 1056904 - CVE-2013-6478 pidgin: DoS when rendering long URLs 1056907 - CVE-2013-6479 pidgin: DoS when parsing certain HTTP response headers 1056908 - CVE-2013-6481 pidgin: DoS caused due to OOB read in Yahoo protocol plugin 1056913 - CVE-2013-6482 pidgin: DoS via multiple null pointer dereferences in MSN protocol plugin 1056978 - CVE-2013-6483 pidgin: Possible spoofing using iq replies in XMPP protocol plugin 1057481 - CVE-2013-6484 pidgin: DoS via specially-crafted stun messages 1057484 - CVE-2013-6485 pidgin: Heap-based buffer overflow when parsing chunked HTTP responses 1057489 - CVE-2013-6487 pidgin: Heap-based buffer overflow in Gadu-Gadu protocol plugin 1057490 - CVE-2013-6489 pidgin: Heap-based buffer overflow in MXit emoticon parsing 1057498 - CVE-2013-6490 pidgin: Heap-based buffer overflow in SIMPLE protocol plugin 1057502 - CVE-2014-0020 pidgin: DoS in IRC protocol plugin due to arguement parsing