Ethereal: Multiple security problems — GLSA 200406-01

Multiple vulnerabilities including one buffer overflow exist in Ethereal, which may allow an attacker to run arbitrary code or crash the program.

Affected packages

Package 	net-analyzer/ethereal on all architectures
Affected versions 	<= 0.10.3
Unaffected versions 	>= 0.10.4

Background

Ethereal is a feature rich network protocol analyzer.

Description

There are multiple vulnerabilities in versions of Ethereal earlier than 0.10.4, including:

    A buffer overflow in the MMSE dissector.
    Under specific conditions a SIP packet could make Ethereal crash.
    The AIM dissector could throw an assertion, causing Ethereal to crash.
    The SPNEGO dissector could dereference a null pointer, causing a crash.


Impact

An attacker could use these vulnerabilities to crash Ethereal or even execute arbitrary code with the permissions of the user running Ethereal, which could be the root user.

Workaround

For a temporary workaround you can disable all affected protocol dissectors by selecting Analyze->Enabled Protocols... and deselecting them from the list. However, it is strongly recommended to upgrade to the latest stable release.

Resolution

All Ethereal users should upgrade to the latest stable version:

 # emerge sync
 
 # emerge -pv ">=net-analyzer/ethereal-0.10.4"
 # emerge ">=net-analyzer/ethereal-0.10.4"

References

    Ethereal enpa-sa-00014
    CVE-2004-0504
    CVE-2004-0505
    CVE-2004-0506
    CVE-2004-0507