Debian 9905 Published by

The following mailx updates has been released for Debian:

[DSA 3104-1] bsd-mailx security update
[DSA 3105-1] heirloom-mailx security update



[DSA 3104-1] bsd-mailx security update

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Debian Security Advisory DSA-3104-1 security@debian.org
http://www.debian.org/security/ Florian Weimer
December 16, 2014 http://www.debian.org/security/faq
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Package : bsd-mailx
CVE ID : CVE-2014-7844

It was discovered that bsd-mailx, an implementation of the "mail"
command, had an undocumented feature which treats syntactically valid
email addresses as shell commands to execute.

Users who need this feature can re-enable it using the "expandaddr" in
an appropriate mailrc file. This update also removes the obsolete -T
option. An older security vulnerability, CVE-2004-2771, had already
been addressed in the Debian's bsd-mailx package.

Note that this security update does not remove all mailx facilities
for command execution, though. Scripts which send mail to addresses
obtained from an untrusted source (such as a web form) should use the
"--" separator before the email addresses (which was fixed to work
properly in this update), or they should be changed to invoke
"mail -t" or "sendmail -i -t" instead, passing the recipient addresses
as part of the mail header.

For the stable distribution (wheezy), this problem has been fixed in
version 8.1.2-0.20111106cvs-1+deb7u1.

We recommend that you upgrade your bsd-mailx packages.

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

[DSA 3105-1] heirloom-mailx security update

- -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Debian Security Advisory DSA-3105-1 security@debian.org
http://www.debian.org/security/ Florian Weimer
December 16, 2014 http://www.debian.org/security/faq
- -------------------------------------------------------------------------

Package : heirloom-mailx
CVE ID : CVE-2004-2771 CVE-2014-7844

Two security vulnerabilities were discovered in Heirloom mailx, an
implementation of the "mail" command:

CVE-2004-2771

mailx interprets interprets shell meta-characters in certain email
addresses.

CVE-2014-7844

An unexpected feature of mailx treats syntactically valid email
addresses as shell commands to execute.

Shell command execution can be re-enabled using the "expandaddr"
option.

Note that this security update does not remove all mailx facilities
for command execution, though. Scripts which send mail to addresses
obtained from an untrusted source (such as a web form) should use the
"--" separator before the email addresses (which was fixed to work
properly in this update), or they should be changed to invoke
"mail -t" or "sendmail -i -t" instead, passing the recipient addresses
as part of the mail header.

For the stable distribution (wheezy), these problems have been fixed in
version 12.5-2+deb7u1.

We recommend that you upgrade your heirloom-mailx packages.

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