Network Time Daemon (ntpd) has potential remote root exploit

The Network Time Daemon (ntpd) supplied with all releases of Red Hat
Linux is vulnerable to a buffer overflow, allowing a remote attacker to
potentially gain root level access to a machine. All users of ntpd are
strongly encouraged to upgrade.

The Network Time Daemon (xntpd on Red Hat Linux 6.2 and earlier, ntpd on
Red Hat Linux 7.0) does not properly check the size of a buffer used to
hold incoming data from the network. Potentially, an attacker could gain
root access by exploiting this weakness.

Potential damage is mitigated by the fact that the Network Time Daemon is
not enabled by default. If you are not using network time services, it
may not even be installed. As a general rule, Red Hat encourages users to
enable only those network services they actually need.

To update all RPMs for your particular architecture, run:

rpm -Fvh [filenames]

where [filenames] is a list of the RPMs you wish to upgrade. Only those
RPMs which are currently installed will be updated. Those RPMs which are
not installed but included in the list will not be updated. Note that you
can also use wildcards (*.rpm) if your current directly *only* contains the
desired RPMs.

Please note that this update is also available via Red Hat Network. Many
people find this an easier way to apply updates. To use Red Hat Network,
launch the Red Hat Update Agent with the following command:

up2date

This will start an interactive process that will result in the appropriate
RPMs being upgraded on your system.

http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2001-0414
BugTraq Message-ID <20010404222701.X91913@riget.scene.pl>
http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~ntp/

overflow