CVE-2008-4989 Security feature bypass in n/a

Medium 5.9 Published 13 Nov 2008 Updated 7 Aug 2024

Man-in-the-middle attackers can spoof certificates for any Distinguished Name by exploiting flawed certificate chain verification in GnuTLS.

Exploited in the wild: Not known
Login needed: Not needed
Attackable: Over the internet
Victim action needed: Not needed
Fix: Available

What is CVE-2008-4989?

CVE-2008-4989 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Canonical Ubuntu Linux, published on 13 Nov 2008. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

Official description

The _gnutls_x509_verify_certificate function in lib/x509/verify.c in libgnutls in GnuTLS before 2.6.1 trusts certificate chains in which the last certificate is an arbitrary trusted, self-signed certificate, which allows man-in-the-middle attackers to insert a spoofed certificate for any Distinguished Name (DN).

Weakness: CWE-295

Which versions are affected by CVE-2008-4989?

It affects 7 products.

Linux distribution packages (10)

`gnutls` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:5::client	All versions	`0:1.4.1-3.el5_2.1`
`gnutls-debuginfo` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:5::client	All versions	`0:1.4.1-3.el5_2.1`
`gnutls-utils` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:5::client	All versions	`0:1.4.1-3.el5_2.1`
`gnutls` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:5::client_workstation	All versions	`0:1.4.1-3.el5_2.1`
`gnutls-debuginfo` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:5::client_workstation	All versions	`0:1.4.1-3.el5_2.1`
`gnutls-devel` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:5::client_workstation	All versions	`0:1.4.1-3.el5_2.1`
`gnutls` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:5::server	All versions	`0:1.4.1-3.el5_2.1`
`gnutls-debuginfo` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:5::server	All versions	`0:1.4.1-3.el5_2.1`
`gnutls-devel` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:5::server	All versions	`0:1.4.1-3.el5_2.1`
`gnutls-utils` Red Hat:enterprise_linux:5::server	All versions	`0:1.4.1-3.el5_2.1`

Products include Canonical Ubuntu Linux, Debian Debian Linux, Fedoraproject Fedora, Gnu Gnutls, Opensuse Opensuse, Suse Linux Enterprise and 1 more.

How do I fix CVE-2008-4989?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

Is CVE-2008-4989 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2008-4989 in the wild and no public exploit code.

All Canonical Ubuntu Linux vulnerabilities

Sources

Also known as DSA-1719-1, GHSA-8ph9-x262-cchw, RHSA-2008:0982.