Re: [BUGS] BUG #2052: Federal Agency Tech Hub Refuses to Accept

#1

Tom Lane wrote:

Quote:

"Ferindo Middleton" <fmiddleton (AT) verizon (DOT) net> writes:
=20=20=20
This bug report involves more than one proposed bug. I work at a federal
government agency. The information technology division at this agency
refuses to allow the database version 8.0.4 on their network because of
several security vulnerabilities they noticed when testing the software
application.
=20=20=20=20=20

They obviously haven't "tested" anything --- they are merely reading the
CVE reports for old Postgres versions. All known CVE problems are
resolved in 8.0.4.

(If they were actually serious about security, they wouldn't be letting
you run Windows 2000 inside their network, but I digress.)

regards, tom lane

=20=20=20

Thanks for your support with this. I had presented the IT support team=20
at this agency with the information you all provided that these=20
CVEs/bugs were resolved in previous versions to 8.0.4 and they suddenly=20
argued that it wasn=92t the CVE=92s that were the problem (without admittin=
g=20
that they never really tested 8.0.4 in the first place)=85 I=92m sorry if I=
=20
wasted anybody=92s time or irritated anyone by assuming that these bugs=20
were actually valid in 8.0.4=85 I=92m starting to get tied up in a bunch of=
=20
bureaucratic tape dealing with these people. I think their just scared=20
of having to deal with the support overhead they think they'll have to=20
assume if they introduce another DBMS on their network=85

Thank you,

Ferindo Middleton

---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
TIP 1: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate
subscribe-nomail command to majordomo (AT) postgresql (DOT) org so that your
message can get through to the mailing list cleanly

#2

On Fri, 2005-11-18 at 09:32 -0500, Tom Lane wrote:

Quote:

All known CVE problems are resolved in 8.0.4.

I was unaware of this. I've looked at the release notes and searched the
archives, but this doesn't seem to be mentioned by CVE number. (The
vulnerabilities and their resolutions are described, just without direct
cross reference to their CVE number.)

Do we have an on-project description of this? If we-as-a-project know
this, it seems straightforward to write it down.

It seems like we need a much clearer resource for security admins to
check our compliance levels. This could be a source of similar
refusal-to-implement PostgreSQL at other installations, so could almost
be regarded as an advocacy issue. Other software projects have been
criticized badly for their security response and info dissemination - I
don't believe that applies here, but it does indicate the general
requirement and its priority. i.e. don't just fix the bugs, tell
everyone you've fixed the bugs.

Or, at very least, put stronger security warnings onto the releases. (My
own advice is always to watch for announcements and stay current).

Thoughts?

Best Regards, Simon Riggs

Stephen's detailed reply to CVE worries copied below for context:
On Fri, 2005-11-18 at 10:08 -0500, Stephen Frost wrote:

Quote:

* Ferindo Middleton (fmiddleton (AT) verizon (DOT) net) wrote:
CVE-2005-0245 Buffer overflow in gram.y for PostgreSQL 8.0.0 and earlier
may allow attackers to execute arbitrary code via a large number of
arguments to a refcursor function (gram.y), which leads to a
heap-based buffer overflow, a different vulnerability than CVE-2005-0247.

I think this was fixed in 8.0.2...

CVE-2005-0244 PostgreSQL 8.0.0 and earlier allows local users to bypass the
EXECUTE permission check for functions by using the CREATE AGGREGATE
command.

This appears to have been fixed in 8.0.1.

CVE-2005-0227 PostgreSQL (pgsql) 7.4.x, 7.2.x, and other versions allows
local users to load arbitrary shared libraries and execute code via the LOAD
extension.

The CVE says it only affected pre-8.0 releases and I'm inclined to
believe it.

CVE-2005-0246 The intagg contrib module for PostgreSQL 8.0.0 and earlier
allows attackers to cause a denial of service (crash) via crafted arrays.

Contrib modules are only an issue if you install them. If you don't
need them, don't install them. Don't know if this was fixed but
honestly I expect it was, the Postgres folks don't just sit around on
their hands when CVE's come out.

CVE-2005-0247 Multiple buffer overflows in gram.y for PostgreSQL 8.0.1 and
earlier may allow attackers to execute arbitrary code via (1) a large number
of variables in a SQL statement being handled by the read_sql_construct
function, (2) a large number of INTO variables in a SELECT statement being
handled by the make_select_stmt function, (3) alarge number of arbitrary
variables in a SELECT statement being handled
by the make_select_stmt function, and (4) a large number of INTO variables
in a FETCH statement being handled by the make_fetch_stmt function, a
different set of vulnerabilities than CVE-2005-0245.

Looks like this was fixed in 8.0.2..

CVE-2005-1409 PostgreSQL 7.3.x through 8.0.x gives public EXECUTE access to
certain character conversion functions, which allows unprivileged users to
call those functions with malicious values, with
unknown impact, aka the "Character conversion vulnerability

This appears to have been fixed in 8.0.3.

CVE-2005-1410 - The tsearch2 module in PostgreSQL 7.4 through 8.0.x declares
the (1) dex_init, (2) snb_en_init, (3) snb_ru_init, (4)spell_init, and (5)
syn_init functions as "internal" even when they do
not take an internal argument, which allows attackers to cause a denial of
service (application crash) and possibly have other impacts via SQL commands
that call other functions that accept internal arguments.

This appears to have been fixed in 8.0.3.

It looks like these were all fixed rather quickly after they were
discovered and brought to the attention of the PostgreSQL team.
http://www.gsa.gov/networx -> Networx Hosting Center -> NHC User
Instructions, Executive Summary.

No software is without bugs. It would be foolish to assume that you can
deploy a system once and never have to update it for newly discovered
security vulnerabilities. If you'd like a comparison to a product
they may be allowing elsewhere you might consider looking at Oracle's
track record for fixing security issues. It's rather... poor. There
have been a number of articles to this affect on bugtraq recently, you
shouldn't have too much trouble finding good examples.

Enjoy,

Stephen

---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
TIP 1: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate
subscribe-nomail command to majordomo (AT) postgresql (DOT) org so that your
message can get through to the mailing list cleanly

#3

Simon Riggs wrote:

Quote:

On Fri, 2005-11-18 at 09:32 -0500, Tom Lane wrote:
All known CVE problems are resolved in 8.0.4.

I was unaware of this. I've looked at the release notes and searched the
archives, but this doesn't seem to be mentioned by CVE number. (The
vulnerabilities and their resolutions are described, just without direct
cross reference to their CVE number.)

Do we have an on-project description of this? If we-as-a-project know
this, it seems straightforward to write it down.

It seems like we need a much clearer resource for security admins to
check our compliance levels. This could be a source of similar
refusal-to-implement PostgreSQL at other installations, so could almost
be regarded as an advocacy issue. Other software projects have been
criticized badly for their security response and info dissemination - I
don't believe that applies here, but it does indicate the general
requirement and its priority. i.e. don't just fix the bugs, tell
everyone you've fixed the bugs.

Or, at very least, put stronger security warnings onto the releases. (My
own advice is always to watch for announcements and stay current).

Well, as the original poster mentioned, they were looking for a reason
_not_ to use PostgreSQL, and if that is the goal, you can find a reason,
error numbers or not.

I am not excited about referencing error numbers from someone else. We
know our errors better than anyone else, so I don't see the point.

--
Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us
pgman (AT) candle (DOT) pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001
+ If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road
+ Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073

---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
TIP 4: Have you searched our list archives?

http://archives.postgresql.org

#4

On Fri, 2005-11-25 at 12:20 -0500, Bruce Momjian wrote:

Quote:

Simon Riggs wrote:
On Fri, 2005-11-18 at 09:32 -0500, Tom Lane wrote:
All known CVE problems are resolved in 8.0.4.

It seems like we need a much clearer resource for security admins to
check our compliance levels. This could be a source of similar
refusal-to-implement PostgreSQL at other installations, so could almost
be regarded as an advocacy issue. Other software projects have been
criticized badly for their security response and info dissemination - I
don't believe that applies here, but it does indicate the general
requirement and its priority. i.e. don't just fix the bugs, tell
everyone you've fixed the bugs.

Well, as the original poster mentioned, they were looking for a reason
_not_ to use PostgreSQL, and if that is the goal, you can find a reason,
error numbers or not.

I think that's true, but it should be our goal to remove all excuses so
that people have to face up to the real issues. I see this as advocacy
in many ways.

Quote:

I am not excited about referencing error numbers from someone else. We
know our errors better than anyone else, so I don't see the point.

I think if you don't want to put those on the release notes, thats fine;
we know you're busy. Others have spoken in favour of a web page,
separate from the release notes, and as Tom points out its easier to do
it that way retrospectively anyway.

*We* do know our errors, but thats not the point. CVE is becoming an
accepted standard for referring to security exposures and we should
follow this trend. http://www.cve.mitre.org/about/introduction.html
CVE isn't just somebody else's bugtrack numbers, they're big.
Debian, Gentoo, RedHat, IBM, CA etc already do this.

Unless somebody else wants to do this, I'll discuss on -www how we can
get a page up on the .org site with this info on, so that we can be "CVE
compatible".

Best Regards, Simon Riggs

---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
TIP 6: explain analyze is your friend

#5

Simon Riggs <simon (AT) 2ndquadrant (DOT) com> writes:

Quote:

Unless somebody else wants to do this, I'll discuss on -www how we can
get a page up on the .org site with this info on, so that we can be "CVE
compatible".

IMHO we should do that in any case, whether or not we mention CVEs
in our release notes or CVS logs in the future. So go for it...

regards, tom lane

---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
TIP 4: Have you searched our list archives?

http://archives.postgresql.org

Thread Tools
Show Printable Version Email this Page
Display Modes
Linear Mode Switch to Hybrid Mode Switch to Threaded Mode

Re: [BUGS] BUG #2052: Federal Agency Tech Hub Refuses to Accept

mailing.database.pgsql-bugs mailing.database.pgsql-bugs

Re: [BUGS] BUG #2052: Federal Agency Tech Hub Refuses to Accept - 11-22-2005 , 07:30 AM

Re: [BUGS] BUG #2052: Federal Agency Tech Hub Refuses to Accept - 11-25-2005 , 05:12 AM

Re: [BUGS] BUG #2052: Federal Agency Tech Hub Refuses to Accept - 11-25-2005 , 11:20 AM

Re: [BUGS] BUG #2052: Federal Agency Tech Hub Refuses to Accept - 11-25-2005 , 12:47 PM

Re: [BUGS] BUG #2052: Federal Agency Tech Hub Refuses to Accept - 11-25-2005 , 01:19 PM