An XML External Entities (XXE) attack was found in the way xmlparse routine, used for producing of xml data type value from character data, of PostgreSQL, an advanced Object-Relational database management system (DBMS), performed parsing of provided character data. An unprivileged database user could issue a specially-crafted SQL query to the PostgreSQL server that, when processed could lead to attacker's ability to read arbitrary system files, accessible with privileges of the user running the PostgreSQL server. References: [1] http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.3/static/release-8-3-20.html [2] http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.0/static/release-9-0-9.html [3] http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.1/static/release-9-1-5.html
This issue affects the versions of the postgresql package, as shipped with Fedora release of 16 and 17. Please schedule an update.
Created postgresql tracking bugs for this issue Affects: fedora-all [bug 849174]
postgresql-9.1.5-1.fc16 has been pushed to the Fedora 16 stable repository. If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.
postgresql-9.1.5-1.fc17 has been pushed to the Fedora 17 stable repository. If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.
Upstream patch: http://git.postgresql.org/gitweb/?p=postgresql.git;a=commitdiff;h=a4b0c0aaf093a015bebe83a24c183e10a66c8c39
This issue did NOT affect the version of the postgresql package, as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 as it did not include support for XML data type yet. -- This issue affects the version of the postgresql84 package, as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. -- This issue affects the version of the postgresql package, as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.
Acknowledgements: Red Hat would like to thank the PostgreSQL project for reporting this issue. Upstream acknowledges Noah Misch as the original reporter.
This issue has been addressed in following products: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Via RHSA-2012:1263 https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2012-1263.html