1 | <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
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2 | <!DOCTYPE chapter PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.5//EN"
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3 | "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd" [
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4 | <!ENTITY % general-entities SYSTEM "../../general.ent">
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5 | %general-entities;
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6 | ]>
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7 |
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8 | <sect1 id="vulnerabilities" xreflabel="vulnerabilities">
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9 | <?dbhtml filename="vulnerabilities.html"?>
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10 |
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11 |
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12 | <title>Vulnerabilities</title>
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13 |
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14 | <!-- section g : 'Others' in longindex.html -->
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15 | <indexterm zone="vulnerabilities">
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16 | <primary sortas="g-vulnerabilities">vulnerability links</primary>
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17 | </indexterm>
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18 |
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19 | <sect2 role="package">
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20 | <title>About vulnerabilities</title>
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21 |
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22 | <para>
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23 | All software has bugs. Sometimes, a bug can be exploited, for example to
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24 | allow users to gain enhanced privileges (perhaps gaining a root shell,
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25 | or simply accessing or deleting other user's files), or to allow a
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26 | remote site to crash an application (denial of service), or for theft of
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27 | data. These bugs are labelled as vulnerabilities.
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28 | </para>
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29 |
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30 | <para>
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31 | The main place where vulnerabilities get logged is
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32 | <ulink url="https://cve.mitre.org">cve.mitre.org</ulink>. Unfortunately,
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33 | many vulnerability numbers (CVE-yyyy-nnnn) are initially only labelled
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34 | as "reserved" when distributions start issuing fixes. Also, some
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35 | vulnerabilities apply to particular combinations of
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36 | <command>configure</command> options, or only apply to old versions of
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37 | packages which have long since been updated in BLFS.
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38 | </para>
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39 |
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40 | <para>
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41 | BLFS differs from distributions—there is no BLFS security team, and
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42 | the editors only become aware of vulnerabilities after they are public
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43 | knowledge. Sometimes, a package with a vulnerability will not be updated
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44 | in the book for a long time. Issues can be logged in the Trac system,
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45 | which might speed up resolution.
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46 | </para>
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47 |
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48 | <para>
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49 | The normal way for BLFS to fix a vulnerability is, ideally, to update
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50 | the book to a new fixed release of the package. Sometimes that happens
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51 | even before the vulnerability is public knowledge, so there is no
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52 | guarantee that it will be shown as a vulnerability fix in the Changelog.
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53 | Alternatively, a <command>sed</command> command, or a patch taken from
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54 | a distribution, may be appropriate.
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55 | </para>
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56 |
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57 | <para>
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58 | The bottom line is that you are responsible for your own security, and
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59 | for assessing the potential impact of any problems.
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60 | </para>
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61 |
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62 | <para>
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63 | The editors now issue Security Advisories for packages in BLFS (and LFS),
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64 | which can be found at <ulink
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65 | url="https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/advisories/">BLFS Security
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66 | Advisories</ulink>, and grade the severity according to what upstream
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67 | reports, or to what is shown at <ulink
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68 | url="https://nvd.nist.gov/">nvd.nist.gov</ulink> if that has details.
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69 | </para>
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70 |
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71 | <para>
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72 | To keep track of what is being discovered, you may wish to follow the
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73 | security announcements of one or more distributions. For example, Debian
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74 | has <ulink url="https://www.debian.org/security">Debian security</ulink>.
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75 | Fedora's links on security are at <ulink
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76 | url="https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/category:Security">the Fedora wiki</ulink>.
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77 | Details of Gentoo linux security announcements are discussed at
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78 | <ulink url="https://security.gentoo.org">Gentoo security</ulink>.
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79 | Finally, the Slackware archives of security announcements are at
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80 | <ulink url="https://slackware.com/security">Slackware security</ulink>.
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81 | </para>
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82 |
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83 | <para>
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84 | The most general English source is perhaps
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85 | <ulink url="https://seclists.org/fulldisclosure">the Full Disclosure
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86 | Mailing List</ulink>, but please read the comment on that page. If you
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87 | use other languages you may prefer other sites such as <ulink
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88 | url="https://www.heise.de/security">heise.de</ulink> (German) or <ulink
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89 | url="https://www.cert.hr">cert.hr</ulink> (Croatian). These are not
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90 | linux-specific. There is also a daily update at lwn.net for subscribers
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91 | (free access to the data after 2 weeks, but their vulnerabilities
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92 | database at <ulink
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93 | url="https://lwn.net/Alerts/">lwn.net/Alerts</ulink>
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94 | is unrestricted).
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95 | </para>
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96 |
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97 | <para>
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98 | For some packages, subscribing to their 'announce' lists
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99 | will provide prompt news of newer versions.
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100 | </para>
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101 |
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102 | </sect2>
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103 |
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104 | </sect1>
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