Security Vulnerability in the GnuTLS (libgnutls(3)) Library Certificate Chain Validation

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A security vulnerability in the GnuTLS (libgnutls(3)) library X.509 certificate chain validation:

1. Impact

A Security vulnerability in GnuTLS (libgnutls(3)) library X.509 certificate chain validation may cause client applications to trust certificate chains in which the last certificate is an arbitrary trusted, self-signed certificate. This may allow a remote unprivileged user to carry out man-in-the-middle type of attacks using forged serer certificates.

Evolution(evolution(1)) and Remote Desktop Applications are examples of applications which use this vulnerable library.

This vulnerability is also described in the following document:

• CVE-2008-4989 at: http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2008-4989
  

2. Contributing Factors

This issue can occur in the following releases:

SPARC Platform

• Solaris 10 without patch 123938-02
• OpenSolaris based upon builds snv_01 through snv_111
  

x86 Platform

• Solaris 10 without patch 123939-02
• OpenSolaris based upon builds snv_01 through snv_111

Note 1: Solaris 8 and Solaris 9 are not impacted by this issue.

Note 2: OpenSolaris distributions may include additional bug fixes above and beyond the build from which it was derived.  To determine the base build of OpenSolaris, the following command can be used:

    $ uname -v
    snv_86

A system is only affected by this issue if it is running applications which use the affected libgnutls(3) library. To determine if an application has a dynamic dependency on the libgnutls(3) library, the ldd(1) utility can be used. For example, to check if Evolution(evolution(1)) has a dependency on GnuTLS, the following command can be used:

    $ ldd /usr/bin/evolution | grep libgnutls
    libgnutls.so.26 =>     /usr/lib/libgnutls.so.26

Note: Some applications may use libgnutls(3) but not report libgnutls(3) as a dynamic dependency with ldd(1) if the library is loaded by dlopen(3C). Therefore, to display all shared objects used by an application, pldd(1) should be used against the running process. To check if libgnutls(3) is used by a running process, the following command can be used:

    $ pldd <pid of application> | grep libgnutls

3. Symptoms

There are no predictable symptoms that would indicate the described issue has occurred.

4. Workaround

There is no workaround for this issue. Please see the Resolution section below.

5. Resolution

This issue is addressed in the following releases:

SPARC Platform

• Solaris 10 with patch 123938-02 or later
• OpenSolaris based upon builds snv_111a or later
  

x86 Platform

• Solaris 10 with patch 123939-02 or later
• OpenSolaris based upon builds snv_111a or later
  

For more information on Security Sun Alerts, see Technical Instruction ID 213557.

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