(RHSA-2008:0579) Moderate: vsftpd security update

vsftpd (Very Secure File Transfer Protocol (FTP) daemon) is a secure FTP
server for Linux and Unix-like systems.

The version of vsftpd as shipped in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 when used in
combination with Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) had a memory leak
on an invalid authentication attempt. Since vsftpd prior to version 2.0.5
allows any number of invalid attempts on the same connection this memory
leak could lead to an eventual DoS. (CVE-2008-2375)

This update mitigates this security issue by including a backported patch
which terminates a session after a given number of failed log in attempts.
The default number of attempts is 3 and this can be configured using the
“max_login_fails” directive.

All vsftpd users should upgrade to this updated package, which addresses
this vulnerability.