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Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5: RHSA-2012:1097-01 Moderate: Glibc Code Issue

red hat
Calendar Grey July 18, 2012
Scroller Redhat
The newly released glibc updates for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 tackle a moderately severe security vulnerability and resolve an issue pertaining to code execution.
Updated glibc packages that fix one security issue and one bug are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5

Solution

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

This update is available via the Red Hat Network. Details on how to use the Red Hat Network to apply this update are available at https://access.redhat.com/knowledge/articles/11258

Summary

The glibc packages provide the standard C and standard math libraries used by multiple programs on the system. Without these libraries, the Linux system cannot function properly.
It was discovered that the formatted printing functionality in glibc did not properly restrict the use of alloca(). This could allow an attacker to bypass FORTIFY_SOURCE protections and execute arbitrary code using a format string flaw in an application, even though these protections are expected to limit the impact of such flaws to an application abort. (CVE-2012-3406)
This update also fixes the following bug:
* If a file or a string was in the IBM-930 encoding, and contained the invalid multibyte character "0xffff", attempting to use iconv() (or the iconv command) to convert that file or string to another encoding, such as UTF-8, resulted in a segmentation fault. With this update, the conversion code for the IBM-930 encoding recognizes this invalid character and calls an error handler, rather than causing a segmentation fault. (BZ#837896)
All users of glibc are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches to fix these issues.

Topics%20covered

Topics Covered

security advisory moderate Red Hat code execution application security glibc environment fix

References

https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2012-3406 https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#moderate

Package List

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop (v. 5 client):
Source:
i386: glibc-2.5-81.el5_8.4.i386.rpm glibc-2.5-81.el5_8.4.i686.rpm glibc-common-2.5-81.el5_8.4.i386.rpm glibc-debuginfo-2.5-81.el5_8.4.i386.rpm glibc-debuginfo-2.5-81.el5_8.4.i686.rpm glibc-debuginfo-common-2.5-81.el5_8.4.i386.rpm glibc-devel-2.5-81.el5_8.4.i386.rpm glibc-headers-2.5-81.el5_8.4.i386.rpm glibc-utils-2.5-81.el5_8.4.i386.rpm nscd-2.5-81.el5_8.4.i386.rpm
x86_64: glibc-2.5-81.el5_8.4.i686.rpm glibc-2.5-81.el5_8.4.x86_64.rpm glibc-common-2.5-81.el5_8.4.x86_64.rpm glibc-debuginfo-2.5-81.el5_8.4.i386.rpm glibc-debuginfo-2.5-81.el5_8.4.i686.rpm glibc-debuginfo-2.5-81.el5_8.4.x86_64.rpm glibc-debuginfo-common-2.5-81.el5_8.4.i386.rpm glibc-devel-2.5-81.el5_8.4.i386.rpm glibc-devel-2.5-81.el5_8.4.x86_64.rpm glibc-headers-2.5-81.el5_8.4.x86_64.rpm glibc-utils-2.5-81.el5_8.4.x86_64.rpm nscd-2.5-81.el5_8.4.x86_64.rpm
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (v. 5 server):
Source:
i386: glibc-2.5-81.el5_8.4.i386.rpm glibc-2.5-81.el5_8.4.i686.rpm glibc-common-2.5-81.el5_8.4.i386.rpm glibc-debuginfo-2.5-81.el5_8.4.i386.rpm glibc-debuginfo-2.5-81.el5_8.4.i686.rpm glibc-debuginfo-common-2.5-81.el5_8.4.i386.rpm glibc-devel-2.5-81.el5_8.4.i386.rpm glibc-headers-2.5-81.el5_8.4.i386.rpm glibc-utils-2.5-81.el5_8.4.i386.rpm

Read the Full Advisory


Advisory ID: RHSA-2012:1097-01
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Advisory URL: https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2012:1097.html
Issue date: 2012-07-18

Topic

Updated glibc packages that fix one security issue and one bug are nowavailable for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having moderatesecurity impact. A Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base score,which gives a detailed severity rating, is available from the CVE link inthe References section.

Topics%20covered

Topics Covered

security advisory moderate Red Hat code execution application security glibc environment fix

Relevant Releases Architectures

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (v. 5 server) - i386, ia64, ppc, s390x, x86_64

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop (v. 5 client) - i386, x86_64

Bugs Fixed

826943 - CVE-2012-3406 glibc: printf() unbound alloca() usage in case of positional parameters + many format specs

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