Debian Security Advisory

DLA-1578-1 spamassassin -- LTS security update

Date Reported:
13 Nov 2018
Affected Packages:
spamassassin
Vulnerable:
Yes
Security database references:
In the Debian bugtracking system: Bug 784023, Bug 865924, Bug 883775, Bug 889501, Bug 891041, Bug 908969, Bug 908970, Bug 908971, Bug 91.
In Mitre's CVE dictionary: CVE-2016-1238, CVE-2017-15705, CVE-2018-11780, CVE-2018-11781.
More information:

Multiple vulnerabilities were found in Spamassassin, which could lead to Remote Code Execution and Denial of Service attacks under certain circumstances.

  • CVE-2016-1238

    Many Perl programs do not properly remove . (period) characters from the end of the includes directory array, which might allow local users to gain privileges via a Trojan horse module under the current working directory.

  • CVE-2017-15705

    A denial of service vulnerability was identified that exists in Apache SpamAssassin before 3.4.2. The vulnerability arises with certain unclosed tags in emails that cause markup to be handled incorrectly leading to scan timeouts. This can cause carefully crafted emails that might take more scan time than expected leading to a Denial of Service.

  • CVE-2018-11780

    A potential Remote Code Execution bug exists with the PDFInfo plugin in Apache SpamAssassin before 3.4.2.

  • CVE-2018-11781

    Apache SpamAssassin 3.4.2 fixes a local user code injection in the meta rule syntax.

For Debian 8 Jessie, these problems have been fixed in version 3.4.2-0+deb8u1. Upstream strongly advocates upgrading to the latest upstream version so we are following that recommendation and backported the version published as part of the 9.6 stretch release, which also fixes many critical bugs.

We recommend that you upgrade your spamassassin packages.

Further information about Debian LTS security advisories, how to apply these updates to your system and frequently asked questions can be found at: https://wiki.debian.org/LTS