GLSA 200701-01: DenyHosts: Denial of Service

Severity:normal
Title:DenyHosts: Denial of Service
Date:01/03/2007
Bugs: #157163
ID:200701-01

Synopsis

DenyHosts does not correctly parse log entries, potentially causing a remote Denial of Service.

Background

DenyHosts is designed to monitor SSH servers for repeated failed login attempts.

Affected packages

Package Vulnerable Unaffected Architecture(s)
app-admin/denyhosts < 2.6 >= 2.6 All supported architectures

Description

Tavis Ormandy of the Gentoo Linux Security Audit Team discovered that DenyHosts used an incomplete regular expression to parse failed login attempts.

Impact

A remote unauthenticated attacker can add arbitrary hosts to the blacklist by attempting to login with a specially crafted username. An attacker may use this to prevent legitimate users from accessing a host remotely.

Workaround

There is no known workaround at this time.

Resolution

All DenyHosts users should upgrade to the latest version:

    # emerge --sync
    # emerge --ask --oneshot --verbose ">=app-admin/denyhosts-2.6"

References

Availability

This GLSA and any updates to it are available for viewing at the Gentoo Security Website: http://security.gentoo.org/glsa/glsa-200701-01.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 security@gentoo.org or alternatively, you may file a bug at https://bugs.gentoo.org.

License

Copyright 2010 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.

Thank you!