Flaws could open systems to attack

Two serious security flaws in a technology widely used for network authentication could expose a swath of software products to hacker attack, experts have warned.

The flaws could allow an online intruder to crash or gain access to computers running Kerberos, a freely available authentication technology that was developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

MIT rates both flaws "critical," according to two advisories released Tuesday. The university also made available patches to fix the problems and stated that exploitation of the bugs by attackers "is believed to be difficult."

Several software makers have already released updates to their products to address the problem. Red Hat, Turbolinux and Gentoo have issued fixes for their Linux versions, for example. Sun Microsystems on Tuesday issued two alerts acknowledging that several versions of Solaris are vulnerable, but it does not have a patch available yet.

Because Kerberos is so widely used, more vendors are likely to publish security alerts, said Brian Grayek, chief technology officer at Preventsys, a vulnerability management company in Carlsbad, Calif. "I think you are going to see a floodgate of patches open," he said.

Microsoft also uses Kerberos, but a homegrown version that is not affected by the flaws.

Both bugs affect Kerberos 5 Release 1.4.1 as well as earlier versions, according to MIT.

Independent security-monitoring company Secunia rates the issues "highly critical," its second most serious rating. The French Security Incident Response Team, or FrSIRT, deems the bugs "critical," its highest ranking.

Preventsys' Grayek agreed that the vulnerabilities are serious but noted that crafting attacks is difficult. "It is going to take somebody with a great deal of knowledge to turn these vulnerabilities into exploits," he said.

This isn't the first flaw in Kerberos. In March, MIT warned of a "serious" bug in the telnet program supplied with Kerberos. Last August, a "critical" flaw was discovered and patched.

Earlier this month a vulnerability in another widely used software component exposed some of the same products to attack. That flaw affects the open-source "zlib" data compression technology. Using a specially crafted file, an attacker could take control over a computer or crash applications that use zlib.

More from News.com on this story's topics

IDS

Create an email alert | RSS feed

Security

Create an email alert | RSS feed

Security threats

Create an email alert | RSS feed

Red Hat

Create an email alert | RSS feed

See more CNET content tagged:
Kerberos, flaw, Red Hat Inc., hacker attack, software product

Add a Comment (Log in or register) 12 comments (Page 1 of 1)
Funny, no vile anti MS posts from Linux zealots!
by Anon-Y-mous July 14, 2005 10:53 AM PDT
Could it be because of this quote: "Microsoft also uses Kerberos, but a homegrown version that is not affected by the flaws."
Reply to this comment View all 3 replies
Funny, no vile anti MS posts from Linux zealots!
by Anon-Y-mous July 14, 2005 10:53 AM PDT
Could it be because of this quote: "Microsoft also uses Kerberos, but a homegrown version that is not affected by the flaws."
Reply to this comment View all 3 replies
give it up
by August 1, 2005 9:22 PM PDT
considering the multiple flawes that have been identified in kerberos over the years of which most have not been in MS implementation as MS when it reviewed the MIT implementation identified many of flawes and were then laughed at and abused for making the changes to there implemetation as they claimed it was better. They have been proven right (there implementation has been out there for over 5 years) but all you will see from people is that "just because they haven't found flawes yet doesn't meant they dont't have any".
Reply to this comment
give it up
by August 1, 2005 9:22 PM PDT
considering the multiple flawes that have been identified in kerberos over the years of which most have not been in MS implementation as MS when it reviewed the MIT implementation identified many of flawes and were then laughed at and abused for making the changes to there implemetation as they claimed it was better. They have been proven right (there implementation has been out there for over 5 years) but all you will see from people is that "just because they haven't found flawes yet doesn't meant they dont't have any".
Reply to this comment
Powered by Jive Software
advertisement
RSS Feeds
Add headlines from CNET News.com to your homepage or feedreader.
Google
Yahoo
MSN
More feeds available in our RSS feed index.

Latest tech news headlines

Most Popular Stories
FCC approval suggests November Android debut
Debate rages over free wireless spectrum
Apple willing to replace any smoking first-gen iPod Nanos
Palm leaks Treo Pro photos and videos
Judge lifts MIT students' card-hacking gag order
Markets

Market news, charts, SEC filings, and more

Related quotes

Red Hat (-2.21%) -0.23 10.18
Dow Jones Industrials (-1.14%) -130.84 11,348.55
S&P 500 (-0.93%) -11.91 1,266.69
NASDAQ (0.00%) 0.00 1,816.15
CNET TECH (-1.39%) -22.86 1,626.36
  Symbol Lookup
advertisement
On The Insider: Jessica Alba Looks Hot at the ALMAs
Advanced
search
Advanced
search
Visit other CBS Interactive sites