Issued:

2012-04-11

Updated:

2012-04-11

RHSA-2012:0475 - Moderate: tomcat6 security update

Synopsis

Moderate: tomcat6 security update

Type/Severity

Security Advisory Moderate

Topic

Updated tomcat6 packages that fix two security issues are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having moderate security impact. Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base scores, which give detailed severity ratings, are available for each vulnerability from the CVE links in the References section.

Description

Apache Tomcat is a servlet container for the Java Servlet and JavaServer Pages (JSP) technologies.

It was found that the Java hashCode() method implementation was susceptible to predictable hash collisions. A remote attacker could use this flaw to cause Tomcat to use an excessive amount of CPU time by sending an HTTP request with a large number of parameters whose names map to the same hash value. This update introduces a limit on the number of parameters processed per request to mitigate this issue. The default limit is 512 for parameters and 128 for headers. These defaults can be changed by setting the org.apache.tomcat.util.http.Parameters.MAX_COUNT and org.apache.tomcat.util.http.MimeHeaders.MAX_COUNT system properties. (CVE-2011-4858)

It was found that Tomcat did not handle large numbers of parameters and large parameter values efficiently. A remote attacker could make Tomcat use an excessive amount of CPU time by sending an HTTP request containing a large number of parameters or large parameter values. This update introduces limits on the number of parameters and headers processed per request to address this issue. Refer to the CVE-2011-4858 description for information about the org.apache.tomcat.util.http.Parameters.MAX_COUNT and org.apache.tomcat.util.http.MimeHeaders.MAX_COUNT system properties. (CVE-2012-0022)

Red Hat would like to thank oCERT for reporting CVE-2011-4858. oCERT acknowledges Julian Wälde and Alexander Klink as the original reporters of CVE-2011-4858.

Users of Tomcat should upgrade to these updated packages, which correct these issues. Tomcat must be restarted for this update to take effect.

Solution

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

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

Affected Products

Updated Packages

• tomcat6-6.0.24-36.el6_2.noarch.rpm
• tomcat6-jsp-2.1-api-6.0.24-36.el6_2.noarch.rpm
• tomcat6-docs-webapp-6.0.24-36.el6_2.noarch.rpm
• tomcat6-6.0.24-36.el6_2.src.rpm
• tomcat6-webapps-6.0.24-36.el6_2.noarch.rpm
• tomcat6-el-2.1-api-6.0.24-36.el6_2.noarch.rpm
• tomcat6-lib-6.0.24-36.el6_2.noarch.rpm
• tomcat6-servlet-2.5-api-6.0.24-36.el6_2.noarch.rpm
• tomcat6-admin-webapps-6.0.24-36.el6_2.noarch.rpm
• tomcat6-javadoc-6.0.24-36.el6_2.noarch.rpm

Fixes

• This content is not included.BZ - 750521
• This content is not included.BZ - 783359

CVEs

• CVE-2011-4858
• CVE-2012-0022

References

• https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#moderate
• Content from tomcat.apache.org is not included.Content from tomcat.apache.org is not included.http://tomcat.apache.org/security-6.html

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.