______________________________________________________________________________

                        SuSE Security Announcement

        Package:                fetchmail
        Announcement-ID:        SuSE-SA:2003:001
        Date:                   Thursday, Jan 2nd 2003 09:30 MEST
        Affected products:      7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 8.0, 8.1
                                SuSE eMail Server 3.1
                                SuSE eMail Server III
                                SuSE Firewall Adminhost VPN
                                SuSE Linux Admin-CD for Firewall
                                SuSE Firewall on CD 2 - VPN
                                SuSE Firewall on CD 2
                                SuSE Linux Connectivity Server
                                SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 7
                                SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8
                                SuSE Linux Office Server
                                UnitedLinux 1.0
        Vulnerability Type:     remote compromise
        Severity (1-10):        4
        SuSE default package:   yes
        Cross References:       CAN-2002-1365

    Content of this advisory:
        1) security vulnerability resolved:
             - heap buffer overflow while expanding email addresses
           problem description, discussion, solution and upgrade information
        2) pending vulnerabilities, solutions, workarounds:
            - none
        3) standard appendix (further information)

______________________________________________________________________________

1)  problem description, brief discussion, solution, upgrade information

    fetchmail is used to download emails from POP-, IMAP-, ETRN- or ODMR-
    servers.
    Stefan Esser of e-matters reported a bug in fetchmail's mail address
    expanding code which can lead to remote system compromise.
    When fetchmail expands email addresses in mail headers it doesn not
    allocated enough memory. An attacker can send a malicious formatted mail
    header to exhaust the memory allocated by fetchmail to overwrite parts of
    the heap. This can be exploited to execute arbitrary code.

    There is no temporary fix known. Please install the new packages from
    our FTP servers.

    Please download the update package for your distribution and verify its
    integrity by the methods listed in section 3) of this announcement.
    Then, install the package using the command "rpm -Fhv file.rpm" to apply
    the update.
    Our maintenance customers are being notified individually. The packages
    are being offered to install from the maintenance web.


    Intel i386 Platform:

    SuSE-8.1:
      
      9a8a8d20e57dd5552fc35c1d17d8f5b2
    patch rpm(s):
      
      9bfc1e8511d3be0da42cc32b06ffef47
    source rpm(s):
      
      8e1310dfe46748320b1c92813a1e9294

    SuSE-8.0:
      
      3be7d683cabd44a5f83b1c0f50a1b1e9
    patch rpm(s):
      
      38c7c2cca1db2e524b1e4f29ef1e8606
    source rpm(s):
      
      d63b65fa7ddba8f93ffc47fa3fc84fe4

    SuSE-7.3:
      
      32e4614b5cdf6afea748036e70d80bab
    source rpm(s):
      
      299b9512dbe87c8e16f14d28288115d3

    SuSE-7.2:
      
      f3267936cae7fc659007291ac15f42b4
    source rpm(s):
      
      318d9781b715741cc9d27b102544d30a

    SuSE-7.1:
      
      311076babc7c2a75b13f24a446327ced
    source rpm(s):
      
      55c64a56f10aa2904955188b1a40a34a



    Sparc Platform:

    SuSE-7.3:
      
      5a2abaab7029167944512b8aab306770
    source rpm(s):
      
      95725d5f8aa677641ea1b041222ed8be



    AXP Alpha Platform:

    SuSE-7.1:
      
      ad4833f9e2a4e6bf31336f2dc363d3e1
    source rpm(s):
      
      ac786b49dcbf71357b4894c0b4fd4b55



    PPC Power PC Platform:

    SuSE-7.3:
      
      6ea104ac2cd3f00a511de286f571ea54
    source rpm(s):
      
      94def5a2d8752920375ddaf8b056c3ca

    SuSE-7.1:
      
      053e1842b7830489f21573c7e5dc25c4
    source rpm(s):
      
      f3220918ec06565d7c588a72dc2514bb


______________________________________________________________________________

2)  Pending vulnerabilities in SuSE Distributions and Workarounds:

    - none
    
______________________________________________________________________________

3)  standard appendix: authenticity verification, additional information

  - Package authenticity verification:

    SuSE update packages are available on many mirror ftp servers all over
    the world. While this service is being considered valuable and important
    to the free and open source software community, many users wish to be
    sure about the origin of the package and its content before installing
    the package. There are two verification methods that can be used
    independently from each other to prove the authenticity of a downloaded
    file or rpm package:
    1) md5sums as provided in the (cryptographically signed) announcement.
    2) using the internal gpg signatures of the rpm package.

    1) execute the command
        md5sum 
       after you downloaded the file from a SuSE ftp server or its mirrors.
       Then, compare the resulting md5sum with the one that is listed in the
       announcement. Since the announcement containing the checksums is
       cryptographically signed (usually using the key security@suse.de), 
       the checksums show proof of the authenticity of the package.
       We disrecommend to subscribe to security lists which cause the 
       email message containing the announcement to be modified so that
       the signature does not match after transport through the mailing 
       list software.
       Downsides: You must be able to verify the authenticity of the
       announcement in the first place. If RPM packages are being rebuilt
       and a new version of a package is published on the ftp server, all 
       md5 sums for the files are useless.

    2) rpm package signatures provide an easy way to verify the authenticity
       of an rpm package. Use the command
        rpm -v --checksig 
       to verify the signature of the package, where  is the
       filename of the rpm package that you have downloaded. Of course, 
       package authenticity verification can only target an un-installed rpm
       package file.
       Prerequisites:
        a) gpg is installed
        b) The package is signed using a certain key. The public part of this
           key must be installed by the gpg program in the directory 
           ~/.gnupg/ under the user's home directory who performs the
           signature verification (usually root). You can import the key
           that is used by SuSE in rpm packages for SuSE Linux by saving
           this announcement to a file ("announcement.txt") and
           running the command (do "su -" to be root):
            gpg --batch; gpg < announcement.txt | gpg --import
           SuSE Linux distributions version 7.1 and thereafter install the
           key "build@suse.de" upon installation or upgrade, provided that
           the package gpg is installed. The file containing the public key
           is placed at the top-level directory of the first CD (pubring.gpg)
           and at   .


  - SuSE runs two security mailing lists to which any interested party may
    subscribe:

    suse-security@suse.com
        -   general/linux/SuSE security discussion. 
            All SuSE security announcements are sent to this list.
            To subscribe, send an email to
                <suse-security-subscribe@suse.com>.

    suse-security-announce@suse.com
        -   SuSE's announce-only mailing list.
            Only SuSE's security announcements are sent to this list.
            To subscribe, send an email to
                <suse-security-announce-subscribe@suse.com>.

    For general information or the frequently asked questions (faq) 
    send mail to:
        <suse-security-info@suse.com> or
        <suse-security-faq@suse.com> respectively.

    ====================================================================    SuSE's security contact is <security@suse.com> or <security@suse.de>.
    The <security@suse.de> public key is listed below.
    ====================================================================______________________________________________________________________________

    The information in this advisory may be distributed or reproduced,
    provided that the advisory is not modified in any way. In particular,
    it is desired that the clear-text signature shows proof of the
    authenticity of the text.
    SuSE Linux AG makes no warranties of any kind whatsoever with respect
    to the information contained in this security advisory.

Type Bits/KeyID    Date       User ID
pub  2048R/3D25D3D9 1999-03-06 SuSE Security Team <security@suse.de>
pub  1024D/9C800ACA 2000-10-19 SuSE Package Signing Key <build@suse.de>