Issued:

2010-01-19

Updated:

2010-01-19

RHSA-2010:0054 - Moderate: openssl security update

Synopsis

Moderate: openssl security update

Type/Severity

Security Advisory Moderate

Topic

Updated openssl packages that fix two security issues are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

This update has been rated as having moderate security impact by the Red Hat Security Response Team.

Description

OpenSSL is a toolkit that implements the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL v2/v3) and Transport Layer Security (TLS v1) protocols, as well as a full-strength, general purpose cryptography library.

It was found that the OpenSSL library did not properly re-initialize its internal state in the SSL_library_init() function after previous calls to the CRYPTO_cleanup_all_ex_data() function, which would cause a memory leak for each subsequent SSL connection. This flaw could cause server applications that call those functions during reload, such as a combination of the Apache HTTP Server, mod_ssl, PHP, and cURL, to consume all available memory, resulting in a denial of service. (CVE-2009-4355)

Dan Kaminsky found that browsers could accept certificates with MD2 hash signatures, even though MD2 is no longer considered a cryptographically strong algorithm. This could make it easier for an attacker to create a malicious certificate that would be treated as trusted by a browser. OpenSSL now disables the use of the MD2 algorithm inside signatures by default. (CVE-2009-2409)

All OpenSSL users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches to resolve these issues. For the update to take effect, all services linked to the OpenSSL library must be restarted, or the system rebooted.

Solution

Before applying this update, make sure that all previously-released errata relevant to your system have been applied.

This update is available via Red Hat Network. Details on how to use the Red Hat Network to apply this update are available at This content is not included.http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/docs/DOC-11259

Affected Products

Updated Packages

• openssl-0.9.8e-12.el5_4.1.s390x.rpm
• openssl-devel-0.9.8e-12.el5_4.1.ppc.rpm
• openssl-devel-0.9.8e-12.el5_4.1.ia64.rpm
• openssl-perl-0.9.8e-12.el5_4.1.ppc.rpm
• openssl-perl-0.9.8e-12.el5_4.1.s390x.rpm
• openssl-0.9.8e-12.el5_4.1.ia64.rpm
• openssl-perl-0.9.8e-12.el5_4.1.x86_64.rpm
• openssl-0.9.8e-12.el5_4.1.i386.rpm
• openssl-devel-0.9.8e-12.el5_4.1.ppc64.rpm
• openssl-devel-0.9.8e-12.el5_4.1.s390.rpm
• openssl-0.9.8e-12.el5_4.1.s390.rpm
• openssl-devel-0.9.8e-12.el5_4.1.x86_64.rpm
• openssl-devel-0.9.8e-12.el5_4.1.i386.rpm
• openssl-0.9.8e-12.el5_4.1.i686.rpm
• openssl-0.9.8e-12.el5_4.1.src.rpm
• openssl-0.9.8e-12.el5_4.1.ppc.rpm
• openssl-devel-0.9.8e-12.el5_4.1.s390x.rpm
• openssl-0.9.8e-12.el5_4.1.x86_64.rpm
• openssl-0.9.8e-12.el5_4.1.ppc64.rpm
• openssl-perl-0.9.8e-12.el5_4.1.i386.rpm
• openssl-perl-0.9.8e-12.el5_4.1.ia64.rpm

Fixes

• This content is not included.BZ - 510197
• This content is not included.BZ - 546707

CVEs

• CVE-2009-2409
• CVE-2009-4355

References

• http://www.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#moderate

Additional information

• The Red Hat security contact is This content is not included.secalert@redhat.com. More contact details at https://access.redhat.com/security/team/contact/.
• Offline Security Data data is available for integration with other systems. See Offline Security Data API to get started.