ZDNet UK story: Microsoft’s chief security strategist aims to keep security at the forefront of the software giant’s agenda, but observers want action not words

“After years of pay increases and multiple job offers, IT managers face an 8% decline in total compensation and IT staff a rollback of 11% from 2001,” says a story at InformationWeek.

“A recent document released by Microsoft has led to some concern within the Samba community regarding patents and licensing. The Samba Team wishes to reassure the Samba community that this document will not have any impact on the use or further development of Samba.” Read full text at http://us1.samba.org/samba/ms_license.html

Timothy R. Butler writes “NeTraverse announced today the release of Win4Lin 4.0 Workstation Edition,
the fourth generation of the SCO Merge-based Windows-on-Linux software.
Win4Lin is similar in concept to VMware, except that it focuses purely on
running Windows 9x, and as such has been known to run Windows applications at
close to native speeds. Read the full story at OfB.biz.”

ctdata.com sent it in: a not-new but interesting article: “Matthew Thomas neatly summarized the reasons why free software products often have poorly designed user interfaces. He really nails the design issues that stem from the organic nature of Open Source development.”

“Users of NullSoft’s popular WinAmp player should upgrade to version 2.80 (available here) to avoid a vulnerability reported on the BugTraq mailing list by Swedish security researcher Andreas Sandblad and confirmed by the company,”says The Register.

Anonymous Reader writes, “Linksys has announced a ‘first of a kind’ Instant Wireless Presentation Gateway (WPG11), that enables wireless PC users to project PowerPoint presentations and other data onto VGA-equipped devices such as multimedia projectors, monitors, and LCD panels without having to physically wire each PC to the projector. Running on an Embedded Linux operating system, the Wireless Presentation Gateway uses an Intersil PRISM 2.5 chipset housed on an internal MiniPCI module, allowing easy chipset upgrades in the future. Read about it at LinuxDevices.com.”

Anonymous Reader writes, “Arend van Beelen jr. reviews SuSE 8.0 and finds it to be ‘great software’ — but with some disappointing installation and initial configuration bugs. But wait — don’t get the wrong impression. Arend fully expects SuSE version 8.1 to be ‘the ultimate distribution’ once the wrinkles in 8.0 get ironed out. Read the review at DesktopLinux.com.”

EnGarde: “There is a heap corruption vulnerability in sudo which may allow an attacker to execute arbitrary commands.”

+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| EnGarde Secure Linux Security Advisory                  April 29, 2002 |
| http://www.engardelinux.org/ ESA-20020429-010 |
|                                                                        |
| Package:  sudo                                                         |
| Summary:  sudo heap corruption vulnerability.                          |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+

  EnGarde Secure Linux is a secure distribution of Linux that features
  improved access control, host and network intrusion detection, Web
  based secure remote management, complete e-commerce using AllCommerce,
  and integrated open source security tools.

OVERVIEW
- --------
  There is a heap corruption vulnerability in sudo which may allow an
  attacker to execute arbitrary commands.

DETAIL
- ------
  sudo allows a permitted user to execute a command as the superuser or
  another user, as specified in the sudoers file.  It takes a -p argument
  which allows the user to specify a custom password prompt.

  The user is permitted to use %u and %h macros which are expanded to
  their username and the systems hostname.  When parsing the argument to
  -p sudo will malloc() memory for the string that is to become the 
  password prompt.

  By using a specially crafted argument the user may trick sudo into
  allocating less memory then it should for this prompt.  If sudo was
  compiled with PAM support (which it is in most Linux distributions) the
  user may corrupt the heap and execute arbitrary commands.

SOLUTION
- --------
  Users of the EnGarde Professional edition can use the Guardian Digital
  Secure Network to update their systems automatically.

  EnGarde Community users should upgrade to the most recent version
  as outlined in this advisory.  Updates may be obtained from:

    ftp://ftp.engardelinux.org/pub/engarde/stable/updates/http://ftp.engardelinux.org/pub/engarde/stable/updates/

Before upgrading the package, the machine must either:

    a) be booted into a "standard" kernel; or
    b) have LIDS disabled.

  To disable LIDS, execute the command:

    # /sbin/lidsadm -S -- -LIDS_GLOBAL

  To install the updated package, execute the command:

    # rpm -Uvh <filename>

You must now update the LIDS configuration by executing the command:

    # /usr/sbin/config_lids.pl

  To re-enable LIDS (if it was disabled), execute the command:

    # /sbin/lidsadm -S -- +LIDS_GLOBAL

  To verify the signatures of the updated packages, execute the command:

    # rpm -Kv <filename>

UPDATED PACKAGES
- ----------------
  These updated packages are for EnGarde Secure Linux Community
  Edition.

  Source Packages:

    SRPMS/sudo-1.6.4-1.0.7.src.rpm
      MD5 Sum: 75db702281fec73962968f099e1a959c

  Binary Packages:

    i386/sudo-1.6.4-1.0.7.i386.rpm
      MD5 Sum: 0ecafa8dd05315772afa7e77f7089d69

    i686/sudo-1.6.4-1.0.7.i686.rpm
      MD5 Sum: a267c880a9e0093e4e13d140898756cc

REFERENCES
- ----------
  Guardian Digital's public key:
    http://ftp.engardelinux.org/pub/engarde/ENGARDE-GPG-KEY

Credit for the discovery of this bug goes to:
    fc, with research/coordination by Global InterSec

  sudo's Official Web Site:
    http://www.sudo.ws/

Security Contact:    security@guardiandigital.com
EnGarde Advisories:  http://www.engardelinux.org/advisories.html

- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
$Id: ESA-20020429-010-sudo,v 1.2 2002/04/29 12:45:39 rwm Exp $
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author: Ryan W. Maple, <ryan@guardiandigital.com> Copyright 2002, Guardian Digital, Inc.

ZDNet is reporting that “SuSE, the German Linux distributor, is increasingly trying to insulate its corporate customers from what many see as a core trait of open-source software: its changeability.”