Moderate: curl security update

Updated curl packages that fix security issues are now available for Red
Hat Enterprise Linux 3, 4, and 5.

This update has been rated as having moderate security impact by the Red
Hat Security Response Team.

cURL is a tool for getting files from FTP, HTTP, Gopher, Telnet, and Dict
servers, using any of the supported protocols. cURL is designed to work
without user interaction or any kind of interactivity.

Scott Cantor reported that cURL is affected by the previously published
"null prefix attack", caused by incorrect handling of NULL characters in
X.509 certificates. If an attacker is able to get a carefully-crafted
certificate signed by a trusted Certificate Authority, the attacker could
use the certificate during a man-in-the-middle attack and potentially
confuse cURL into accepting it by mistake. (CVE-2009-2417)

cURL users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain a
backported patch to correct these issues. All running applications using
libcurl must be restarted for the update to take effect.

Before applying this update, make sure that all previously-released
errata relevant to your system have been applied.

This update is available via Red Hat Network. Details on how to use
the Red Hat Network to apply this update are available at
http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/docs/DOC-11259

516181 - CVE-2009-2417 curl: incorrect verification of SSL certificate with NUL in name

https://www.redhat.com/security/data/cve/CVE-2009-2417.html
http://www.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#moderate