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Gentoo Linux Security Advisory GLSA 200507-13

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                                        http://security.gentoo.org/

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Severity: Normal
Title: pam_ldap and nss_ldap: Plain text authentication leak
Date: July 14, 2005
Bugs: #96767
ID: 200507-13

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Synopsis

pam_ldap and nss_ldap fail to restart TLS when following a referral,
possibly leading to credentials being sent in plain text.

Background

pam_ldap is a Pluggable Authentication Module which allows
authentication against an LDAP directory. nss_ldap is a Name Service
Switch module which allows 'passwd', 'group' and 'host' database
information to be pulled from LDAP. TLS is Transport Layer Security, a
protocol that allows encryption of network communications.

Affected packages

-------------------------------------------------------------------
 Package            /  Vulnerable  /                    Unaffected
-------------------------------------------------------------------

1 sys-auth/nss_ldap < 239-r1 >= 239-r1
*>= 226-r1
2 sys-auth/pam_ldap < 178-r1 >= 178-r1
-------------------------------------------------------------------
2 affected packages on all of their supported architectures.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Description

Rob Holland of the Gentoo Security Audit Team discovered that pam_ldap
and nss_ldap fail to use TLS for referred connections if they are
referred to a master after connecting to a slave, regardless of the
"ssl start_tls" ldap.conf setting.

Impact

An attacker could sniff passwords or other sensitive information as the
communication is not encrypted.

Workaround

pam_ldap and nss_ldap can be set to force the use of SSL instead of
TLS.

Resolution

All pam_ldap users should upgrade to the latest version:

# emerge --sync
# emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=sys-auth/pam_ldap-178-r1"

All nss_ldap users should upgrade to the latest version:

# emerge --sync
# emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose sys-auth/nss_ldap

References

[ 1 ] CAN-2005-2069
http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CAN-2005-2069

Availability

This GLSA and any updates to it are available for viewing at
the Gentoo Security Website:

http://security.gentoo.org/glsa/glsa-200507-13.xml

Concerns?

Security is a primary focus of Gentoo Linux and ensuring the
confidentiality and security of our users machines is of utmost
importance to us. Any security concerns should be addressed to
[email protected] or alternatively, you may file a bug at
http://bugs.gentoo.org.

License

Copyright 2005 Gentoo Foundation, Inc; referenced text
belongs to its owner(s).

The contents of this document are licensed under the
Creative Commons - Attribution / Share Alike license.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0