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If through a vulnerability assessment, a network security issue is detected for the vulnerability below, applying the appropriate security patches in a timely matter is very important. If you have detected that your system has already been compromised, following CERT's Network Security recovery document will assist with recommended steps for system recovery.

Home >> Browse Vulnerability Assessment Database >> SuSE Local Security Checks >> SUSE-SA:2003:001: fetchmail

Vulnerability Assessment Details

SUSE-SA:2003:001: fetchmail

Vulnerability Assessment Summary
Check for the version of the fetchmail package

Detailed Explanation for this Vulnerability Assessment

The remote host is missing the patch for the advisory SUSE-SA:2003:001 (fetchmail).

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. A possible hacker 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.

Solution : http://www.suse.de/security/2003_001_fetchmail.html
Network Security Threat Level: Medium

Networks Security ID:

Vulnerability Assessment Copyright: This script is Copyright (C) 2004 Tenable Network Security

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